Its visual resonance is amplified by having been recorded by two of the most important architectural photographers of the twentieth century, Ezra Stoller (1915-2004)  and Balthazar Korab (1926-  ).  As we work to understand the property and the changes it underwent, to have the photographs taken by these men is to sift a treasure almost beyond one’s wildest hope. Many preservation projects must rely on much less for visual documentation.  Imagine being immersed a career of genealogical and historical research and suddenly working on an individual whose every portrait had been taken by Cecil Beaton or Irving Penn!

Monica and Balthazar Korab, Photo by Mark Zelonis

My first look at Ezra Stoller’s work was in The Galveston That Was by Houston architect Howard Barnstone.  First published in 1966, the book contains photographs by Stoller and by Henri Cartier-Bresson, and is credited with dramatizing the importance of architectural preservation in the decayed coastal city.  Stoller captured the Miller House and Garden shortly after its completion, some of the images appearing in Architectural Forum of September 1958 and in an article titled “A New Concept of Beauty” in the February 1959 edition of House and Garden.  In keeping with the family’s wishes, the house was published without naming its owner or location.  Stoller’s images, however, assumed a life of their own, achieving great staying power and continuing to illustrate publications about the property decades later.

While Stoller’s visits to the Miller House and Garden were limited to a brief period just after the house’s completion, Korab made several trips to Columbus over many years and so developed an archive of images that captures a sense of evolution and change.  Judging from his images, Stoller’s interest seems to have been more in the house than the garden, with the landscape appearing primarily at the margins of his photographs.  In contrast, Korab’s work responds equally to the architecture and to the landscape, giving it tremendous value to the effort to unravel the garden’s secrets.  Eero Saarinen:  Buildings from the Balthazar Korab Archive, published in 2008, presents a significant sampling of his work at the Miller property.

In June of this year, I had the opportunity to travel to Balthazar Korab’s studio in Troy, Michigan, with Mark Zelonis, Ruth Lilly Deputy Director of Environmental and Historic Preservation at the IMA, in order to review hundreds of photographs.  For the better part of two days, we visited with Balthazar and Monica Korab at their home and studio, enjoying their generous and gracious hospitality in an atmosphere that combined photography, architecture, gardens, and history, all enlivened with the Korabs’ sense of humor and whimsy.  An additional delight was the chance to see the Korabs’ own garden, built over decades on the gentle slopes surrounding their 19th-century house.

Korabs' Studio, Photo by Mark Zelonis

Korabs' Garden, Photo by Mark Zelonis

It was a joy to be with them both, to review the images of the Miller House and Garden with the man who took them, and to listen to anecdotes of a career that can only be described as humbling.  We heard stories of his early association with Le Corbusier, of his entry in the design competition for the Sydney Opera House, his work in Italy during and after a devastating flood in the 1960s, and of his work in Saarinen’s office while it was developing designs for the Miller house.  Of the Millers’ living room fireplace, a simple but exquisitely detailed freestanding cylinder, Korab remarked that the lengthy process of arriving at so pure a design had been responsible for changing him from an architect to a photographer.

Miller House Living Room, Photo by Balthazar Korab©

We spoke of his work to photograph the model for Minoru Yamasaki’s World Trade Center, which was so large that Korab had to rent a space to accommodate both the model and the necessary photographic equipment.  Monica Korab quipped at one point that Balthazar had photographed most of the works of what she called the “brand name” architects of the twentieth century.  I asked about Philip Johnson’s house for the Houston collectors and philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil (coincidentally, it was they who supported publication of The Galveston That Was).   In a moment, my inquiry was rewarded with a large file of color transparencies that recorded the idiosyncratic glory that resulted when the Menils, great collectors of surrealist art, engaged couturier Charles James to design the home’s interiors.  Another treat was to see photographs of Alexander Girard’s residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and to gain some insight into how his taste intersected with that of the Millers in designing and decorating their interiors.  Almost as an afterthought, out of the files came images of the interiors of Georgia O’Keefe’s house.  I was reeling by this point, feeling myself on the edge of a body of work so vast I could barely see into it, let alone comprehend it.

Balthazar Korab’s Genius Loci:  Cranbrook was my memento of the trip to Michigan.  Beautiful as this book is, however, I will remember the visit more for having been in the presence of so deep a repository of experience, of so keen a visual intelligence, whose work has helped shape our perception of the work of the 20th century’s greatest architects.

Lilly House at the IMA

Interior view of Lilly House

The Miller House and Garden crept into my awareness at some time while Oldfields had my full attention.  I don’t remember when I first learned of it, but I remember distinctly two things about the impression I had.  It was an extraordinarily beautiful and important property, and it was difficult to gain access to it.  Visiting lecturers or groups might sometimes make requests to see the property, but it was rare that we could accommodate them.  The Miller House and Garden seemed remote and mysterious.  In the meantime, I still had plenty to occupy me with Oldfields.  I rarely thought about the home in Columbus.

When I first saw the Miller House and Garden in April of 2007, the situation was entirely different from seeing Oldfields in 2000.  The Lilly family had been gone from Oldfields for over 30 years, during which the IMA changed and adapted its use of the house, the interiors drifting away from their domestic appearance all the while.  By 2000, it conveyed little impression of being a home.  By contrast, Mrs. Miller was still living in her home when I visited for the first time.  Having been the Millers’ home for almost exactly 50 years at that time, it possessed all the communicative power that came from being the undisturbed repository of family possessions.  A sizeable group made the visit that day, so the conditions for viewing were less than ideal.  Even with the distractions of people milling about and chattering, the house’s impact was striking.  Striking for the qualities of light and space, for the luxurious materials modestly used, for the kinds of objects in the house, but perhaps most of all for the owners’ personalities that the objects hinted at.

At Miller House, looking over floor plans

The landscape, designed by Dan Kiley, was another revelation.   Nothing I had seen prepared me for it, for its beautifully direct use of formal design elements – line, mass, and color – and for its elegant contrasts between the most basic of landscape elements:  light and shade, stone and turf, enclosure and openness, higher and lower elevation, close and distant perspectives.

Miller House in Columbus, IN

Two years later, I am still processing my response the property.  I’m not sure how much the property is continuing to reveal itself to me and how much may be due to a growing ability to apprehend and appreciate.  Now we are planning for the approach we will take to interpret the Miller House and Garden.  Once again, an experience to savor.

As the IMA website indicates, we have taken official possession of the Miller House and Garden in Columbus, Indiana. This will make the second National Historic Landmark property the IMA has in its collection (Oldfields-Lilly House and Gardens being the first). How’s that for bragging rights! As a practical matter however, home ownership is not all fun and games in this situation. Ahead lies a road of challenges for the staff working on MHG teams.

Columbus is an hour’s drive south of Indy, which makes it difficult to explore the house and conduct business with the current local staff. Director of Lilly House Operations Bradley Brooks, head of our team of six, has spent a lot of time on the phone and making the trek south in the run-up to taking possession of the property. He has interacted with everyone from members of the Miller family to a nephew of  Eero Saarinen. Bradley has been, and continues to be a very busy beaver.

The task of converting a residential property into a museum showcase has been an educational experience for our team, so far. It has forced us to look at all the things we do here at the museum, a lot of which we take for granted, and formulate how to adapt and transplant these practices to a former family home fifty miles away.

Chief Registrar Katie Haigh and Conservator-in-Charge David Miller (along with more staff down the road) will need to inventory, evaluate, photograph, and catalog the entire contents of the house. Katie and David are currently working with Buildings guru Bert Reader to determine what can be done with the climate control systems to best preserve the house and its contents. And don’t forget, the house itself is a piece of art–made primarily of steel, marble and glass—so David will have to develop a list of acceptable cleaning supplies, and a schedule for keeping the house spic and span. Structural drawings, building materials, maintenance records and other information on the house and other buildings on property will need to be collected and researched to assist with preservation efforts.

Bert, Safety Manager Mindy Summers and I have been looking at the safety and security needs of the house. Needless to say, there are some interesting and quirky aspects to MHG.

It’s been an Easter egg hunt at times to find some of the security devices hidden in the many nooks and crannies, and Bert has had to deal with the Complex Issues Dept. at the phone company. Who knew? In addition to proposing some upgrades to the existing security and fire systems, we have met with Columbus fire and police personnel to discuss access issues and response procedures to ensure smooth cooperation with local agencies.

Mindy and I will take our existing procedures from the IMA, such as access lists, on-call lists and key control, and adjust them to fit the Miller House environment. We will eventually have to add other safety procedures, such as a disaster plan and a hazardous chemical inventory, to the many books that will reside at the house. After the house is reconfigured to our satisfaction (or budget limits), we will determine staffing levels, work schedules, the inventory process, lockdown procedures and other security duties to be performed.

In the meantime, Director Max Anderson, Sr. Curator of Design Arts R. Craig Miller, Director of Environmental and Historic Preservation Mark Zelonis and others will devise the plan for how to present the house to the public.

The to-do list is endless, but having another landmark property like the Miller House adds a huge feather to the IMA’s cap and broadens the art experience that we can offer to our visitors.