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Minneapolis, Minnesota
And each morning she wakes with a dream to describe, something lovely that bloomed in her beautiful mind
My irregular and totally random travel schedule has taken me through Minneapolis five times this year so far, with many of them involving lengthy, three hour plus layovers at MSP. From the airport (home of the Senator Larry Craig Memorial Men’s Room), a handy one line light rail system connects right to downtown Minneapolis and to a stop only a few blocks walk away from the brand new Guthrie Theatre, designed by world famous French architect Jean Nouvel. The theatre is on the edge of downtown, right next to the former Gold Medal Flour Mill on a site that overlooks the Mississippi River. Nouvel took the site and created a complex that feels inspired and shaped by both features- its massing feels unabashedly industrial while it addresses the river with a massive, unmistakable gesture- a cantilevered bridge which reaches to and overlooks the city and the river and the falls.
The cantilevered bridge to nowhere is certainly memorable and certainly heroic, an integral part of a design that is certainly both although an area that is functionally questionable at best. The bridge is primarily a public space between the three theatres, although one that is a bit out of the way from the rest of the building's circulation. At the bridge's very end, stadium seats drop down and offer an unobstructed, fantastic view of the city and the river and the falls, creating another memorable destination in a building with so many other destinations so memorable in and of themselves.
As for the portraits, the building is full of them. Generally unidentified actors and playwrights and scenes are plastered all over the exterior midnight blue exterior panels and all over the interior white walls, although in the interior they have a much more ghostly presence, they seemingly fade in and fade out as fading memories and one scene vignettes throughout the building's public spaces.
That big giant cantilevered bridge comes with a great little bonus, super deep windows on each side lined with mirrors that frame and reflect funhouse views. The images are reversed and then reversed again, creating real life compositions with upside down cars and clouds both above and below at the same time. Fun.
Midnight blue isn't the only dramatic color that Jean Nouvel used. The upper floor lobby for the complex's black box theatre is a post apocalyptic yellow, a startling mid day effect that is certainly hard to miss in the cantilevered overlook above the bridge on the river side. Heightening the drama is a yellow skylight directly above a yellow glass floor, a wonderful little effect in a building so full of such wonders.
One other quick thing in this first picture- the snow. It is evidence of multiple visits to Minneapolis including three visits (so far) to this Jean Nouvel building.
A rare, non work related trip brought me back to Minnesota (again) and right to Saint Paul, the (probably) evil twin of the twin cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul, it is home to two stately domed buildings on either end of a grand boulevard, a catholic cathedral (coincidentally named after Saint Paul) and the dome of the State Capitol of Minnesota. A great building designed by New York architect Cass Gilbert a hundred (or so) years ago, the capitol building offered free (and security free) access and free hourly tours which take you into the legislative chambers, the state supreme court, the governor's reception rooms and, most impressively, upstairs on the roof for a birds eye view of Saint Paul and a great view right aside the dome.
Meanwhile the building may be beautiful, but the real attraction may be in the basement. The portrait of populist, wildcard, 9/11 conspiracy theorist, pro wrestler, film actor, Mexican resident, sports color commentator and all around good talk show guest Jesse (The Body) Ventura, the former independent governor elected (possibly on a bet) by the otherwise rational people of the state of Minnesota. Unlike the other former governor portraits on display, Ventura's portrait has an ominous feel if you ask me, as if the distant view of a suddenly wooded (or perhaps post apocalyptic) Saint Paul under a dark and stormy (or perhaps nuclear winter) sky is maybe not a fond remembrance of times past but rather some sort of warning. Maybe its all of the recent 9/11 conspiracy talk. It's hard to tell I guess.
Designed by Cesar Pelli in a long lost era of great architectural expression and public design (it opened in 2008), the Minneapolis Public Library is surely a fine building although not necessarily an exciting one. Sure that great big looking silver canopy is interesting, but the interior space it leads to feels like it could be an office building anywhere as opposed to a library in Minnesota. Still there is one great little detail- screened glass panels that look like simple frosted glass but transform into a design of birch trees from exactly the right distance. Too far or too close and the images blur and break up, a great little effect on an otherwise competent (though unspectacular) facade.
Herzog and de Meuron's second best museum building in the United States, the Walker Art Center is still a great museum in an interesting (though imperfect) building. The Hennepin Avenue entrance (pictured below) with its big stainless steel crinkly cube and its irregular grid pattern of grassy sidewalk circles certainly has its charms, even if the circulation inside starts to fall apart a little.
My real reason to go to Saint Paul and back once again to Minnesota had nothing to do with random work travel and all to do with a continuing tradition. For a good decade or so now, I have been taking my father (a fellow hockey fan) to professional NHL hockey games in various cities across North America for his birthday. Detroit, Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington, Toronto, Detroit, Ottawa, Chicago and now Saint Paul, home to the Minnesota Wild, a team coached (until recently) by one time New Jersey Devils coach Jacques Lemaire. The Wild are a reasonably recent NHL expansion team that replaced the old Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars), and are well known for selling out every single home game that they have played in Saint Paul. An impressive feat and an impressive experience, a great hockey town in a great hockey state with a so-so hockey team (they lost their game that night and ended up just missing the playoffs because of it).
