The top half of the First Christian Church tower features the now-restored "grid" structure.

photo by: Hadley Fruits, Landmark Columbus Foundation

September 04, 2024

After Years of Infiltration from the Elements, a Modernist Hotspot's Iconic Tower is Restored

Despite its spectacular collection of Modernist architecture, Columbus, Indiana, has a surprising dearth of architects. Louis Joyner is one of just a handful of architects currently based in this small city of about 50,000 residents.

So, when First Christian Church—one of the nation’s first Modernist churches, designed by noted Finnish American architect Eliel Saarinen and built in 1942—needed an architect to restore its iconic, 166-foot-tall clock tower in Columbus, Joyner was one of the only local options. But he was far from the default: Dave Woodall, the Church’s facility manager, said Joyner was the obvious choice for the job.

“We did look at some other [firms that] were out of state,” said Woodall. “It came down to Louis because he knew the facility so well.”

The restoration was completed in late 2023, funded in part by a grant from the National Fund for Sacred Places, a program of Partners for Sacred Places in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But Joyner’s involvement with First Christian Church’s preservation began more than 25 years ago, when he first started advocating to protect Columbus’s Modernist legacy.

A wide shot of the restored First Christian Church tower.

photo by: Adam Reynolds

The restored First Christian Church tower in Columbus, Indiana, was built alongside the main church in 1942.

Cracking Under Pressure

In the early 2000s, Joyner helped spearhead an effort—with the help of preservation organization Indiana Landmarks—to secure a National Historic Landmark designation for First Christian Church and three other Columbus buildings designed by Eero Saarinen, Eliel’s famed son, along with a few other significant structures in the city. To get a National Historic Landmark designation for not just one, but seven Modernist buildings “really pushed the normal boundaries” of what was considered historic at the time, Joyner said.

Joyner’s next professional encounter with First Christian Church came in 2014, when his firm was hired to assess the church's condition. The tower raised immediate concerns. Joyner noted significant water damage, but the cause wasn’t clear, so he recommended further study when possible. A couple years later, he was completing some work on the roof of the sanctuary, allowing him to see the tower from a new vantage point. That’s when Joyner saw cracks in the masonry.

Previously, “we had only been able to look at [the top of] the tower from the interior,” said Joyner. “In the interior, you just saw water damage, moisture, rust, that kind of stuff. You couldn’t really see that there was actually masonry damage.”

Sourcing the Problem

In late 2018, the church hired Joyner, along with Ratio Design, Arsee Engineers, and The Engineering Collaborative (the same four firms that would eventually take on the restoration) to assess the tower’s condition and make recommendations. They drilled down the issues to two main culprits: movement and water.

At the top of the tower on both its east and west elevations, 28 square openings in the brick structure—commonly termed “the grid”—were originally filled with precast concrete grilles, allowing for ventilation. On the tower’s west elevation, below the grid, another series of 20 square openings cascade in a vertical line down the northwest side of the structure. This is called “the zipper.”

In the 1970s, concrete was installed behind the zipper in an attempt to stabilize the tower. At the same time, the openings in the grid were filled with plastic panels to stop water infiltration. But these repairs resulted in a new problem: lack of airflow.

Meanwhile, the tower was slowly cracking. While the north and south walls had solid lateral strength, Joyner said, the east and west walls were weakened by the grids.

A close shot of the First Christian Church shows the details of "the zipper."

photo by: Adam Reynolds

A portion of the First Christian Church tower's now-restored "zipper" feature.

“As torsional forces of wind and heat and expansion—just all the forces that a building is subject to—move up through the tower and hit this area of the grid ... suddenly it’s able to move,” he said. “That had resulted in a huge amount of cracking on the east and west walls, but also on the north and south walls, because they were twisting as a result of that movement.”

The cracks allowed water to get in, and the lack of ventilation meant it wasn’t getting out, creating “this really high-water vapor atmosphere in there,” Joyner said. Water droplet patterns observed on the floors indicated it may have rained inside the tower.

The First Christian Church tower while under construction for its 2023 restoration.

photo by: Hadley Fruits, Landmark Columbus Foundation

After a significant fundraising effort, construction started in 2023 and was complete by the end of the same year.

Construction works on scaffolding work on the First Christian Church tower during its 2023 restoration.

photo by: Hadley Fruits, Landmark Columbus Foundation

Construction workers install the concrete-block wall to stabilize the part of the tower where the grid would be restored.

Mending a Masterpiece

With a renewed sense of urgency, First Christian Church got to work raising money for a massive restoration undertaking. Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County provided a $600,000 bridge loan so the project could get started before grant funding was secured. The fundraising team secured a $500,000 Save America’s Treasures grant from the National Park Service in 2020; a $500,000 grant from the Jeffris Family Foundation in 2021; and a $250,000 grant in 2021 from the National Fund for Sacred Places. The Save Our Tower campaign raised the balance of the $3.2 million project through donations. Both Heritage Fund and Landmark Columbus Foundation played key roles in helping bring in donors.

“We were able to do it without incurring any debt,” said Tim Bond, executive minister of First Christian Church. “One of the most significant things about this project was the coalition of community members that participated in it.”

With Joyner on board as architect, the restoration began in 2023 and was completed by the end of the same year.

To stabilize the upper third of the tower where the grid had been causing trouble, the team installed a concrete-block wall on the east and west sides of the clock chamber. These walls were then faced with a brick grid just like the original, and each opening was filled with panels of Indiana limestone, as were the zipper openings.

One of the restored panels in the First Christian Church's "grid," now made of Indiana limestone.

photo by: Louis Joyner Architect

A panel of Indiana limestone used to replicate the original grid pattern on the tower.

“They’re milled in a pattern that replicates the original precast concrete grilles,” Joyner said of the limestone panels. “One of the nice things about Indiana limestone is that it looks a lot like concrete. So as the material, it made a lot of sense. It’s actually more stable over time than concrete. It doesn’t have rebar in it that can rust, which is why the precast concrete grilles, we’re pretty sure, failed.”

The team also repaired the tower’s roof; restored the interior floors; sealed a cistern in the basement, which was allowing water vapor to enter the tower; installed a new heating and ventilation system; and restored the clock on the north face of the structure.

One of the final touches was reinstalling the pedestrian door at the tower’s base.

The base of the restored First Christian Church tower, including the restored pedestrian door, framed by a tree in the foreground.

photo by: Adam Reynolds

The restored oak door at the tower's base.

"It’s a series of vertical and horizontal slats. The pieces are put together kind of like Legos. It’s a pretty amazing construction,” said executive minister Bond. “When they were trying to deal with some of the [moisture] issues in the tower, at one point they cut a hole in that door and put a fan in it.”

To fill the gap and restore the door, the team sourced 1940s white oak to match the door’s original old growth lumber.

“It took a whole bunch of guys calling all their buddies to track down some white oak for that,” said Joyner. “That’s the kind of things we had to do.”

That collaborative, can-do approach was evident throughout the tower’s eight-month-long restoration.

“The teamwork that went into this project—I’ve been in construction for 30-plus years—I’ve never seen nothing like it,” said facilities manager Woodall. “Even the ones doing the construction work, down to the laborers, felt like they had part ownership in it. It was the smoothest $3.2 million project I think I’ve ever dealt with—and I think it went really well.”

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Preservation magazine Assistant Editor Malea Martin.

Malea Martin is the assistant editor at Preservation magazine. Outside of work, you can find her scouring antique stores for mid-century furniture and vintage sewing patterns, or exploring new trail runs with her dog. Malea is based on the Central Coast of California.

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