Early 19 th-century simple wooden buildings blend with late 19 th-century architectural masterpieces on quiet treelined streets in the town’s central Historic District, which includes a library, gallery, and an opera house. It also offers a comparable set of shops, galleries, and venues with an inherent harmony in design. New Harmony doesn’t have town planning staff, but it does have appointed citizens who serve on the New Harmony Plan and Historic Preservation Commission and the New Harmony Zoning Commission. As he explains, the town’s small size– just 719 residents-sets it apart from other communities in some senses. It was the beginning of a partnership that ultimately inspired Kent to move to New Harmony, where he and his wife, Suzy, make their home today.ĭrawing upon his architectural sense and preservationist sensibility, Schuette took part in the inaugural Place Making Institute in 2019 on behalf of New Harmony. As he turned to her for advice on preserving a building, she sought his counsel on how to construct a labyrinth in New Harmony. He wondered if instead of being razed, the building could be converted into a home for the university’s landscape architecture program. Schuette reached out to her in 1998 when Purdue University announced plans to tear down the second-oldest building on its campus. Owen’s thoughtful and well-chronicled revitalization efforts in New Harmony caught the attention of Kent Schuette, an Indiana native and longtime landscape architecture professor at Purdue University. She picked Philip Johnson for the town’s iconic, non-denominational worship center, the Roofless Church, which was designed to reflect her belief that “all religions hold the heavens in common.” She chose Richard Meier to design the striking white Athenaeum, which is now home to New Harmony’s visitor center. She turned to some of the nation’s leading architects to develop designs for the buildings incorporating sacred and natural geometry. Ms Owen, joined by the State of Indiana and Lilly Endowment, snapped up nearly every historic building in town, many of which had fallen into disrepair. More than a century after its founding, in the 1940s, Jane Blaffler Owen, picked up where her ancestor left off and took the lead on the town’s revitalization efforts. It was home to the country’s first free library, the site of the first geological survey in the United States, and it even boasted a public school system open to both men and women. Although Owen’s experiment ultimately failed, the town racked up some notable claims to fame in its early years. Its placemaking story is guided by people who have taken note of its unique qualities and adapted them to the needs and demands of the current times.įounded in 1814 by Johann Georg Rapp and his Harmonie Society, the town was purchased in 1825 by Robert Owen, who turned it into a utopian community. Tucked away on the southwestern tip of Indiana on the banks of the Wabash River, the tiny town of New Harmony has evolved from an 1800s social experiment into a modern-day spiritual sanctuary and gathering place for scientists, spiritualists, artists, and scholars. A Quirky Utopian Town Embraces its Past while Forging its Future
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