Limestone Porches
Between Imitation and Arbitration
Styles of Indiana Limestone Columns
In Residential Architecture along the Stone Belt
Jeeyea Kim and W. Dorian Bybee
Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design
Indiana University Bloomington
Between Imitation and Arbitration is a research project funded through a Platform Research Fellowship, which is an interdisciplinary research laboratory in the contemporary arts and humanities at Indiana University. The research aimed to identify a distinct material culture significance and its vernacular application styles present in the south-central Indiana region, along the “Stone Belt” of Indiana limestone. Indiana limestone has been utilized for some of the most iconic American architecture works in the last two centuries; however, it also has been used broadly and distinctively around the Stone Belt region, where the material is quarried and fabricated.
The research aimed to identify vernacular architectural details found in Indiana limestone applications in residential architecture, including a plethora of styles and characters available to analyze. The study particularly focused on regional housing built during the mature period of Indiana limestone production (1890-1930), when the population was growing rapidly due to large numbers of incoming workers and their families. Among several subjects of this study, the foremost task was to explore the distinct application styles of Indiana limestone in residential architecture, based on the owner’s socio-economic status and professional resources.
Through extensive analytic research, we discovered various styles of limestone columns framing the public faces of private lives -- front porches. Among many limestone column styles, we reimagined three columns associated with some of the values and characteristics of the material culture that we studied – inherently Hoosier – through the imitation and arbitration of their silhouette and texture.
Jei Jeeyea Kim, Assistant Professor, and W. Dorian Bybee were the museum’s Limestone Heritage Month guest speakers.
Our Limestone Heritage Month guest speakers at the Lawrence County Museum (June2021) are Jei Jeeyea Kim, Assistant Professor, and W. Dorian Bybee, Lecturer, both from the J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design at Indiana University. The name of her presentation is Between Imitation and Arbitration.