“While critics, researchers and practitioners debated what these works mean for design, memory and cultural history, another audience encountered them with less burden. Children leapt into the Pool/Side, young people swayed on the swing at the Lift, neighbours lingered at The Crump and people enjoyed music at Joy Riding. For them, the installations were not arguments or provocations, but part of daily life—something new, something shared. And perhaps that is the most enduring question: in our determination to curate and define culture, are we forgetting that culture is, maybe, the most authentic, not when it is framed, but when it is lived?”

At this year’s Exhibit Columbus event, one installation used the city’s schools as means of exploring a different kind of educational innovation.

César Lopez, an architecture professor at the University of Virginia, and his fellow architecture educators Jess Myers, Amelyn Ng, and Germán Pallares-Avitia designed PUBLIC/SCHOOL/GROUNDS, which draws on the unique roofscapes of Columbus schools — Schmitt, Parkside and others — to create a series of wood outdoor classroom furniture. Arranged on the campus of Columbus’ Central Middle School, the site is simultaneously a space for learning, play, repose and exploration; reclining angles and swooping curves in bright primary colors.

“On August 16, over 400 people braved the corn sweat to celebrate the opening of the fifth edition of Exhibit Columbus (EC), a self-described “exploration of community, architecture, art, and design that activates the modern legacy of Columbus, Indiana.” The main event took the form of a walking tour, which guided attendees to all 13 of this year’s installations: six by University Design Research Fellowship winners; four from J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller Prize recipients; two community-led projects; and one environmental graphics package by Sing-Sing.”

“For Barnes, Joy Riding dovetails perfectly with this year’s Exhibit Columbus theme, ‘Yes And’, a term borrowed from improv theatre that encourages shared, ongoing storytelling. ‘It's the joy that comes when you are in high school... getting your first car, passing driver's ed and taking the keys from your parents and saying, “I'll be back,”’ Barnes tells Wallpaper*. ‘That freedom from when you get to put your hands on the steering wheel and it's just you and the car.’”

Since the inaugural Exhibit Columbus in 2017, the Landmark Columbus Foundation has invited people to visit the Indiana city every two years to experience installations spread across downtown and other parts of the “small-town architectural mecca.” A highlight of this year's exhibition—the fifth, curated under the theme Yes And—is Accessing Nostalgia, an installation by Chicago's Adaptive Operations at the 136-year-old Crump Theatre.

“A cobalt wading pool integrated into the red-brick expanse of a sweeping, I.M. Pei–designed plaza and a gridded structure adorned with kite-like swathes of colorful fabric installed within the sunken courtyard of an Eliel Saarinen churchare just two of the site-specific installations now on view during the exhibition of the fifth cycle of Exhibit Columbus in Columbus, Indiana.”

“A massive sound system with a publicly accessible Bluetooth connection and a sculpture built from industrial scraps feature among the installations at Exhibit Columbus in Indiana, USA. The biennial festival returned this year for its fifth cycle with a series of architectural pavilions arranged around the historical centre of the small Indiana city. Known for its mid-century modern architecture, Columbus was built under the patronage of local businessman J Irwin Miller and includes churches by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen and American architect Myron Goldsmith.”

“Biennial architecture festival Exhibit Columbus has removed A View of the World from Indiana, an installation designed by Sarah Aziz that featured statues of a dozen well-known architects, some depicted with minimal clothing. The exhibition announced the removal of the installation on Wednesday, saying it did not meet Exhibit Columbus' "high standards."“

“Exhibit Columbus activited the 2025 Yes And installations on Saturday, with about 400 people touring the 13 sites.”

“Exhibit Columbus will pay tribute to the young artists of the present and future while also giving kids of all ages a chance to see the 13 new “Yes And” installations during Next Generation Day, to be held Sept. 6 from 10 a.m. to noon. Landmark Columbus Foundation Operations and Communications Manager Abigail Flout said previous Exhibit Columbus exhibitions have held Next Generation Days, but this cycle’s Next Generation Day will be slightly different.”

“Exhibit Columbus has removed the installation A View of the World from Indiana from Sarah Aziz, one of the University Design Research Fellowship installations, after what organizers described as “late and unapproved changes to the concept and its resulting on-site execution.”"