Indianapolis Museum Of Art acquires Saarinen's Miller House

[Jorge Otero-Pailos]

The IMA has acquired the landmark Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Indiana. One of the country’s most highly regarded examples of mid-century Modernist residences, the Miller House was designed by Eero Saarinen, with interiors by Alexander Girard, and landscape design by Daniel Urban Kiley.
Members of the Miller family have donated the house and gardens with many of its original furnishings to the Museum. The Miller family and the Irwin-Sweeney-Miller Foundation have also made a $5 million lead gift toward an $8 million operating endowment for the house and surrounding grounds. The IMA is raising $3 million for the remainder of the endowment and $2 million for the 18-month renovation of the house, which will entail a careful restoration of many of the original period details. Once the renovation is completed, the IMA will work with the Columbus Area Visitors Center to offer public access to the house and gardens.

Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2000, the house expands upon an architectural tradition developed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe—epitomizing the international Modernist aesthetic—with an open and flowing layout, flat roof and vast stone and glass walls.