Columbus — the Miller House and its conversation pit, on pause

Columbus, Indiana: forty thousand inhabitants and more signed buildings than many a capital city. It is here that Kogonada shot, in 2017, a film in which two characters do almost nothing but look at architecture. Press pause on the house scene: the Miller House, and its living room sunk into the floor.

A town as set

It all begins with an industrialist, J. Irwin Miller, who for decades paid the fees of architects for his schools, his banks and his churches: Eliel then Eero Saarinen, I. M. Pei, Harry Weese, Robert Venturi. The film lets these façades scroll past the way others film faces. Nothing is a studio set; everything can be visited.

The conversation pit

The Miller house, designed by Eero Saarinen in 1957, is known above all for its interior, entrusted to Alexander Girard: at the centre of the living room, a square sunk into the floor, lined with brightly coloured cushions, into which one steps down to sit. The conversation pit was copied across 1960s America, then forgotten, then rediscovered by the feeds. It rests on three things: a continuous floor, cushions swapped with the seasons, and not a single piece of furniture placed around it.

What can be bought

The pieces in the house are in production: Saarinen's seating at Knoll, the Tulip table, Girard's textiles and objects reissued by Vitra and Herman Miller. A period Tulip chair changes hands for between 500 and 1,000 €, a reissue for more. The pit, on the other hand, cannot be bought: it has to be built. Failing that, a large thick rug and cushions on the floor give the spirit of it for around a hundred euros.

The palette

Girard worked colour as though it were furniture: reds, ochres, pinks and turquoise in touches over a ground of white marble and walnut. The film's lesson: a calm architecture can carry frank colours, provided they are gathered in a single place.

The gesture of this column: put the film on pause, capture the scene, scan it on Beyit. The original, the alternatives, the prices.