The North Christian Church is a building and former congregation at 850 Tipton Lane in Columbus, Indiana, United States. Designed by Eero Saarinen and completed in 1964, the structure originally housed a Protestant Disciples of Christ congregation of the same name. The interior designer Alexander Girard, the landscape architect Dan Kiley, and Saarinen's associate Kevin Roche assisted with various parts of the design. The building has been owned by the Bartholomew County Public Library since 2024. The design has received praise over the years, particularly for its spire and iconography, and was frequently compared to the First Christian Church, designed by Saarinen's father Eliel Saarinen. In addition, the building is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
The church building is set on grounds designed by Kiley. The grounds include a berm surrounding the building, with entrances accessed by driveways to the west and east, as well as various trees arranged across the site. The building has a hexagonal floor plan. Above a glass curtain wall, ribs divide a slate roof into six sections supporting the central metal spire. The base of the spire includes an oculus that admits light inside. The interior, designed by Girard, is split across two main levels, accessed by a narthex on an intermediate level. The lower level contains classrooms, an auditorium, a kitchen, and a chapel. The bowl-shaped sanctuary, on the upper story, consists of a central communion table, surrounded by pews on five sides and a pulpit, organ, and choir loft on the sixth.
The North Christian Church congregation was founded in late 1955, and one of its early members, the industrialist J. Irwin Miller, helped the congregation acquire a plot of land in 1958. After interviewing various architects, the congregation's building committee hired Saarinen in 1959, and the plans were finalized shortly before his death two years later. A groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1962, and the building hosted its first service on March 8, 1964. Over the years, the congregation made numerous modifications to the building and expanded the grounds. By the early 21st century, the congregation faced dwindling membership and was unable to maintain the building. After the congregation was disbanded on July 16, 2022, the Bartholomew County Public Library took over the structure. The library system renamed the building The LEX: the Library of Experience, intending to renovate it into a library branch.
Site
The North Christian Church building is located at 850 Tipton Lane in Columbus, Indiana, United States. The site is flat and sits roughly between U.S. Route 31 to the north, Home Avenue to the east, Tipton Lane to the south, and Sycamore Street to the west. Due to the area's street grid, Tipton Lane is split into two offset sections at Sycamore Street. Just north of the T-intersection with the eastern section of Tipton Lane, Sycamore Street turns west, becoming the western section of Tipton Lane. Sycamore Street does not intersect U.S. 31, The surrounding area consists mostly of low-density residences.
The grounds were designed by Dan Kiley, who had worked with the church building's architect Eero Saarinen at the Miller House and Irwin Union Bank in Columbus and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. The former North Christian Church congregation had purchased the western portion of the property first, followed later by land to the east. Kiley was involved with both the original landscape design and subsequent modifications. The final landscape design dates from 1974, three years after the final piece of property was acquired. The design had been diluted by the late 1970s, when a neighbor built a brick house right in front of the church building.
Berm and driveways
The church building is near the site's western boundary and is surrounded by a berm. When the building opened, the berm was nicknamed the Mount of Expectation, since it was supposed to give the feeling that something significant would happen to congregants attending services there. Moats run along the berm to the north and south, letting natural light into the building. Vehicle drop-offs, above the berm, adjoin entrances on the western and eastern elevations of the building. Stairs descend from both drop-offs to the entrances, The eastern driveways travel through a grove of native hardwoods, The layout of the hedges evokes the pews in traditional churches.
Early plans called for memorial plaques to be embedded into the berm, with each plaque honoring a deceased congregant. Alexander Girard was responsible for many of the interior furnishings, including objects used for liturgy. Van Zelm, Heywood & Shadford received the mechanical engineering contract, while Henry Pfisterer received the structural engineering contract. Other contractors included acoustic consultant Bolt, Beranek & Newman, food-service contractor Howard L. Post, and lighting consultant Stanley McCandless. He believed that modern churches were not as grand as traditional churches, and that secondary spaces such as Sunday schools, gymnasiums, and kitchens detracted from the significance of the church building itself. The North Christian Church was built for, and used by, a congregation of the same name that disbanded in 2022. Saarinen was inspired by the steep steps at Angkor Wat and Borobudur, where visitors had to interact with the architecture and work to reach the sanctuary. He thought that building an entire church on one level made religion "too easy" and detracted from the spiritual experience of going to church. Therefore, he placed the sanctuary above the berm and basement. Saarinen wrote that "you should have to work for it and it should be a special thing", referencing how congregants had to climb up the berm before climbing back down to the entrance. The design also gave the impression that the sanctuary was floating above the basement. Each corner of the hexagon has a steel buttress, which is welded to a concrete base and flares outward as it ascends.
Roof and spire
The eaves, which form the roof's perimeter, extend about from the facade and are low to the ground. with a copper gutter concealed behind it. just below the spire.
The spire reaches above ground The spire was intended to evoke spires in older Christian churches, which usually functioned as the focal points of these buildings.</blockquote>
The spire is made of copper and is coated with a substance to prevent it from oxidizing and turning green; instead, the copper was intended to turn gray as it aged, matching the roof color. Saarinen wanted the building's design to remove man from the earthly world, so instead of anchoring the building to the ground with solid rectangles, Saarinen used pointed angular forms that hover and point to the heavens. At the top of the spire was a gold leaf cross, Both levels are hexagonal, As a result, the interior is heated and cooled by an underfloor air distribution system. Air from these pipes is funneled into the rooms through hidden openings in the millwork. The sanctuary, on the upper level, is cooled by underfloor ducts and an empty plenum space beneath its center. Girard's wife Susan designed a tapestry, which depicted the tree of life and was displayed at the pulpit. This core has spaces such as restrooms, cloakrooms, and dressing rooms. These spaces have polished-concrete floors, except for the dressing rooms (which have ceramic tiles) and the bathrooms (which have porcelain tiles). The auditorium could seat 420 people and is decorated with a dove, symbolizing the Holy Spirit.