Ohio History Center Groundbreaking photographs   Save
Ohio History Connection Properties File
Description: Governor James Rhodes used an Ohio-shaped shovel to turn the first earth for the new Ohio History Center, shown here on on August 22, 1966. The Ohio Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) moved to the new building, located near the Ohio State Fairground on Velma Avenue, after 53 years in the Ohio State Museum building on High Street near the entrance to The Ohio State University. Pictured in the first photograph are (left to right): Trustees Don E. Weaver, Wayne J. Graf, and Harold J. Grimm, architect Byron Ireland, Governor James Rhodes, Senator Robert Shaw, Representatives Keith McNamara and Jerry O'Shaughnessy. The second photograph shows (left to right): OHS President Daniel R. Porter, trustee Fred J. Milligan, Governor James Rhodes and trustee Don E. Weaver. W. Byron Ireland & Associates, a Columbus architectural firm, designed the Ohio History Center building. The building is an example of "Brutalism," a rational, structuralist, monumental style exported in the early 1950s by French and British architects. Distinguished by its structural honesty and undisguised, blunt use of materials, Brutalism departed from conventional bourgeois styles. Stone and marble were rejected in favor of form-textured concrete, or beton brut, a technique employed by the French architect LeCorbusier. Founded in 1885, the Ohio History Connection conducts a range of activities related to interpreting, collecting and preserving the state's heritage. In the last century, the organization has collected more than 1.5 million items pertaining to Ohio's history, archaeology, and natural history. The organization's services include managing the state archives, administering the state's historic preservation office, and operating a network of historic sites and museums. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om3368_4835281_001
Subjects: Columbus (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Design and construction; Architecture; Ohio Historical Society; Museums; Archives; Libraries; Brutalism (Architecture)
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)