JEWEL BOX BANK: Merchant’s National Bank, Grinnell Iowa, designed by Chicago architect Louis Sullivan

Golden griffin flanking entrance to the Merchant's National Bank building, Grinnell, Iowa.

On our recent visit to Grinnell, Iowa, home of Grinnell College, our alma mater, Art and I did a walking tour of the historic downtown. On the corner of 4^th and Broad Streets is the famous Merchant’sNational Bank, designed by Chicago architect Louis Sullivan. It opened to great fanfare on New Year’s Day, 1915. Today the banking business is housed in an addition in the back and the original building is a museum and visitor center.  A sign at the front door beckoned us in.

Welcome sign.

Inside, a helpful Chamber of Commerce representative answered our questions and invited us to look around and help ourselves to the brochures displayed on the counter.

Interior of bank. At the front facing the street are two offices where bank managers could meet with customers.

With the bright light and dark wood paneling, the room almost feels like a church--a monument to commerce. As we looked around and gazed up at the skylight and wall decorations, we certainly felt in awe. Everything inside the bank is carefully chosen and beautifully crafted—from the hand carved wooden check desk and pink marble floors, to the mosaic clock and tall stained-glass windows.

Stained glass windows, 15 feet high and 40 feet wide.

Mosaic clock over the door, inside the bank.

The Merchant’s National Bank is one of eight jewel box banks designed by Sullivan for midwestern towns. The phrase ‘jewel box’ was coined by Sullivan to convey the simplicity of the brick structure—a giant jewel box-- while underscoring the security of the objects stored inside. To quote one of the brochures: “What distinguishes the buildings is Sullivan’s unparalleled ornamentation—from awe-inspiring stained-glass windows, to the majestic griffins standing guard at the entrance to the geometric/organic explosion of terracotta that dominates the façade.”

Louis Sullivan.

Louis Sullivan is known as the father of modern architecture and was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. His work inspired the development of the Prairie School of Architecture. A display about Louis Sullivan and his accomplishments fill one corner of the room.

Ornate facade with stained window inset over the doorway to the bank.

The Merchant’s National Bank is designated as a National Historic Landmark. At the back of the historic chamber glass doors lead to the modern functioning bank, operated by Wells Fargo, housed in a 1974 addition to the building. 

When Art and I were students at the college in the 1960s, Art had an account at Poweshiek County National Bank, the then owner of the bank. (The bank has changed names several times through the years.) As we revisited on our recent trip and signed the visitors' guestbook, it brought back many memories.

Signing the guest book at the check desk. 

For more about the Grinnell's Jewel Box Bank go to  https://www.grinnellchamber.many org/ or https://www.grinnelliowa.gov/103/Louis-Sullivan-Bank .

Click here for the BROCHURE.

Ornament detail.

BRIAN CZAJA’S MINIATURE DREAM HOUSES Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Mini-house by Brian Czaja (31" long, 10 1/2" high)

My friend Caroline Hatton, a children’s writer and frequent contributor to this blog, met architect Brian Czaja at the 2025 Seattle Miniature Show, where she kept coming back to his display to see the mini houses he had made. All the photos in this post are courtesy of Brian Czaja.

As a lifelong fan of miniatures, I was in heaven last March at the 2025 Seattle Miniature Show. Dozens of exhibitors displayed and sold minis: finished houses, kits, building materials, tools... real-life tools (such as scissors) and mini tools (such as scissors only half an inch or 1.5 cm long), mini furniture, appliances, pots and pans, potted plants, pies and pudding, mini grab-and-go sushi deli boxes with a plastic-wrapped fortune cookie smaller than my smallest fingernail clipping...

House 1 living room.

House 1 bedroom.

My absolute favorites were the miniature contemporary homes designed, built, and furnished by Brian Czaja. Alas, visitors were not allowed to take photos in the exhibitors hall. Fortunately, Brian agreed to help me put together this blog post, so that you too can enjoy seeing his works of art.  

The three photos above show his House number 1. it is 31" (roughly 79 cm) long and 10 1/2 (roughtly 27 cm) high. The size of House 1 is 1:24 scale (one twenty-fourth of real-life size, which minieatureists also call 1/2" scale because 1 foot in real life becomes 1/2" in miniature.)  

At the show, my guess that he is a retired architect was correct! He went to Syracuse University School of Architecture in New York state, then studied and taught at the University of Bristol in England. He had his own practice in Buffalo, New York, for almost 30 years, worked for other firms in Phoenix, Arizona, for almost 20 years, then in northern California, and now lives in Salem, Oregon.

I asked him why he makes mini houses. “To keep active thinking and doing what I’ve done for a very long time,” he said. “It’s fun to design and build.” His mini houses reflect the way he has always designed, especially as a believer in simplicity.

House 2 design.

Brian begins the process with an idea and imaginary site—on a hill, by the ocean, in a meadow. He develops the idea in his sketch books until he is satisfied with what he has designed. His requirements are simple for all his designs—a house for two artists. Once the idea and design are set, he starts developing “construction drawings.” These can be quite detailed depending on the design. “Just like in the real world, you have to know how it’s going to be built.”

House 2 construction.

Once the construction drawings are finished, Brian orders materials and begins building, using his preferred woods: basswood, cherry, and red oak—only three kinds, to keep the inventory under control in his mini lumber yard. He makes all his houses from scratch, using no laser cutters or purchased windows and doors.

House 2.

When the house is done, he starts on the interior. He designs it (furniture, planters, etc.) at the same time as the house, but doesn’t make it until the last step.

House 3.

The above photo is a view of House 3 from across the pond, with the living and dining areas on the right end. The size of Houses 2-5 is 1:48 scale (one forty-eighth of real-life size, which miniaturists also call 1/4" scale because 1 foot in real life is represented by 1/4" in miniature.) 

House 3 living and dining areas.

The height of a real chair is 18" (or roughly 46 cm) to the top of the cushion. The chair height in Houses 2-5 is 3/8" (or 9.5 mm) on the 1:48 scale.

The mini paintings are scale reproductions of real-life paintings… by Brian! The man needs more than one outlet for his endless creativity.

House 4 living, dining and bedroom levels.

House 4 living room.

For House 4, Brian didn’t have to imagine on what plot of land he would build it. In his travels, he happened to spot a hillside home with ocean view and couldn’t help but dream up what house he would build there instead.

House 5 main entry.

House 5 back deck.

A big difference between Brian’s mini work and his past, real-life work is that now, he is both the architect and the client, so if he has any complaints, all he has to do is talk to himself! Seriously, this dual role allows him to take liberties, such as adding or deleting rooms as he wishes. Other pleasing differences are that things like site and weather are no problem. He can make the imaginary site fit the house and he can build in his workshop even if it’s raining or snowing outside.

I decided to write about this because many of the miniatures I have seen, including some of the finest museum pieces with plenty of character, don’t feel unique or even distinctive, so I don’t tend to remember them specifically. In contrast, Brian’s houses struck me as memorable.

To see Brian’s houses with your own eyes, consider visiting him at the upcoming Seattle Miniature Show on March 5-9, 2026.

I can’t wait to see his new creations!

ASIA MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, Taichung, Taiwan: Triangles and Flowers

At Asia University, on the outskirts of Taichung, Taiwan, is the new Asia Museum of Modern Art, a striking steel and concrete building designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Basing his design on an equilateral triangle, every part of the building reflects the triangle shape. During our recent trip to Taiwan, I was treated to a special tour of the museum.

On the lawn outside the glass and steel structure, Rodin’s Thinker greets visitors.

Inside the building, a model of the building's unique design can be seen in the lobby.

Model. The building is formed of three triangular floor plates, stacked as to provide a sheltered external patio at ground floor level, where open-air cafés and other areas of congregation are formed

Throughout the building the geometry is repeated with V-columns supporting the structural steel frame.

Support beams

The museum features rotating temporary exhibits, and at the time of my visit last fall, it was the Language of Flowers, a theme chosen to coordinate with the 2018 World Flora Exposition held in Taichung.

Painting of flowers by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama with her signature polka dots.

The museum's goal is to display works from young Taiwanese artists and other artists from Asia, providing a global stage for contemporary works. For this exhibit, each room of the museum displayed diverse works of art that employ flowers as motifs.

Detail of painting made over a sheet of gold leaf, which can be seen peeking through the foliage

Works on display ranged from paintings and drawings to sculpture and jewelry. 

Hands holding a rose

One whole room was devoted to the glittering jewelry of Taiwanese jewelry artist Aka Chen who “fuses oriental philosophy and crafting technology to eternalize beauty of natural objects with precious stones and breathe life into their presentation.” Flowers and butterflies are among his most popular subjects.

The entry panel to the Aka Chen room is designed to allow visitors to strike a pose and become one of his butterflies.

In another room of the museum, paintings and other objects reflected the bright colors and floral designs of the indigenous cultures of Taiwan.

Woman in traditional dress wearing a floral headdress

The Language of Flowers exhibit was truly a garden of delights. My photos show just a tiny sample of the beautiful and creative pieces that were part of it.
For information about visiting the Asia Museum of Modern Art and other sites in the Taichung area, click HERE.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S TALIESIN WEST – Guest Post by Caroline Hatton

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's former office at Taliesin West in Arizona

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Caroline Hatton visited Taliesin West, outside of Phoenix, Arizona, in April of 2016.

Growing up in Paris, I first became aware of legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867‑1959) when, as a child, I saw a photo of the most famous house he designed, Fallingwater, which incorporates a waterfall. I was incurably awed. Besides the fact that I love waterfalls and woods and nature-inspired designs, I liked the deceptively simple, clean lines, and how the uncluttered look made me feel emotionally and mentally uncluttered as well, and as a result, serene and focused.

As an adult now living in California, I have yet to visit Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. But I have now visited Wright’s former winter home, Taliesin West, in Arizona.

 

Outside the Garden Room (living-room)

Upon arrival, I loved the complete freedom to take photos even though the tour I chose wasn’t the photography tour. The docent who led my tour was an architect, good at telling informative and entertaining anecdotes about Frank Lloyd Wright, a genius, luminary, and eccentric who led an eventful life. For example, the docent explained Wright’s theory about designing tight entrance doorways into relatively more spacious rooms, to make visitors feel compressed, then decompressed, thus making the room seem larger than it is.

What surprised me the most was that Wright and his architecture students had thrown Taliesin West together roughly and not polished its construction in detail. It had started as a campsite of canvas tents before hard tents were built, consisting of rock and concrete walls with a canvas top. The docent said that plexiglas roofs and glass windows were added only after Wright’s wife requested some way to keep out the bugs.

From what I had read in advance, I expected to see buildings reminiscent of the landscape, such as the mountains in the backdrop, and made of materials found in the desert, such as rocks. Natural light lit up the interiors through large glass windows and walls. Amazingly, the place felt contemporary, even though it was built in the 1930s.

Rooflines evoke nearby mountains

Taliesin West developed as a school campus with a private area for the Wrights. The school included an auditorium for lectures and for entertainment , a cabaret designed to enhance its stage acoustics.

Taliesin West is not a museum. Instead, to this day, it houses the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, with current students living on site to hone their craft and pursue degrees (what a life!).

Guest quarters

Out of respect for the students’ creative work, talking and photography were not allowed while walking past the drafting studio, where many were hard at work during my visit.

Drafting studio breezeway

The site is also the home of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, which “exists to preserve Taliesin and Taliesin West for future generations, and to enrich society through an understanding of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas, architecture, and design.”

I knew about Wright’s taste for things Asian, but was surprised to see items he collected even though they were broken.

Who cares if the rider lost his head? The horse is intact!

What didn't surprise me is that I didn't like the angularities—the odd tilt of roofline angles evocative of the nearby mountains, the uneven hexagonal shape of Wright's former-office door, or the stiff-looking, uninviting living-room armchairs and dining room chairs. Yet I welcomed and appreciated this confirmation of my preference for curves. Wright did experiment with roundness with some success at other times in his creative life, for example when he designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

The dining room

Visiting Taliesin West was fun, interesting, and enriching. It made me want to watch again the documentary, “Frank Lloyd Wright,” by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns. It also inspired me to unclutter my home and life, to heighten serenity and focus in my own creative pursuits.

In the garden

For more info

Read about Taliesin West at http://www.franklloydwright.org/taliesin-west/index.html

Find an index of Frank Lloyd Wright’s works, complete with addresses, details, and links to websites at http://www.franklloydwright.org/work/index.html

Consult resources for teachers and a bibliography at http://www.pbs.org/flw/resources/index.html