Inside Out

Drawing on the rich legacy of Columbus, Indiana, and its architectural heritage, particularly the playful and imaginative work of Alexander Girard, our multi-story dollhouse contains a visual history of Columbus’s architecture and design. Along with his more well-known textile and pattern work, Girard created a three-story dollhouse for the Miller family. In the adjacent space, a carpet embeds the family’s stories, arranging a series of icons in its patterning that recall different events that construct their collective identity.

At once, Columbus is a veritable archive of architecture spatially arrayed throughout the city, awaiting discovery in an incredible scavenger hunt. Yet, its significant interiors remain hidden as privatized spaces or are less well-known than their exteriors. The dollhouse turns the architecture of Columbus inside out to focus on its architectural interiors. New dolls, designed by Columbus’s youth, A terraced playground, derived from Girard’s iconic conversation pit, surrounds the dollhouse with colorful seating and textile patterns making it so young visitors can ascend and more easily view the upper levels. Like Girard’s carpet, the design incorporates the Columbus community’s stories, weaving the unique and varied identities that compose the city into the project, reflecting the multiplicious collective identity of Columbus today.