One of the most remarkable and fascinating features of the city Columbus, Indiana is the ‘Cummins Corporate Headquarters Museum’. Cummins is a company that manufactures engines for trucks and buses. This company makes many advanced designed engines for the bus models like Orion VII, LFS, and D40LF.
Cummins Corporate Headquarters’ building is situated at 500 Jackson Street in downtown Columbus, Indiana. This is a modernist style structure designed by a well known architect Kevin Roche. It is built on the old railway yard, around the original factory building, the Cerealine Building, of Cummins. Glass and concrete are the major elements used in the construction. Landscaping work as well as the large open green portion of land used as a park was handled by Jack Curtis.
In the lobby of the building, we come across a sculpture, famous as the "Exploded Engine” designed by the renowned American graphic designer Rudolph de Harak. We can call it the centerpiece of the museum. This sculpture depicts all the pieces including all the tiny nuts and bolts a diesel engine is made of, in a very illustrative manner. The parts are deconstructed and suspended with the help of a wire. It explains in a detailed and better way how and where all the parts of a diesel engine fit. This is a very apt sculpture to be here. It represents the product of the company as well as educates visitors. Moreover, there are real cars, the Indy 500 race cars and other rare and antique cars put up for display.
This museum is open from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday and no entry fee is charged. This is a highly recommended place to visit if you are on the tour of the city Columbus in Indiana.
