NEW YORK — Minneapolis may be out to recapture its “Minne-apple” nickname, considering five big-name architects have rolled out blueprints that will dramatically change the city’s makeup.
The team of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are working on the new Walker Art Center; Michael Graves is revamping the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the adjacent Children’s Theater Complex; Jean Nouvel is renovating the Guthrie Theater and Cesar Pelli is designing the new Minneapolis Central Library. The Walker is expected to be the first to open, in April, with the others expected to be wrapped up by spring 2006.
Thomas Fisher, dean of the College of Architecture & Landscape Architecture at the University of Minnesota, chalked up the architects’ interest to the caliber of the institutions.
But Fisher said, “Being in the middle of the country in what some people call ‘fly-over land,’ we have to try that much harder to help make our presence felt.”
The flashy exteriors and innovative interiors of the buildings should ramp up interest in what some might call a sleepy city. So much so that residents are said to catch 23 nights of decent sleep each month, ranking the Twin Cities number one in a recent survey of the best places to sleep.
What is equally eye-opening is that the bulk of the money for the new projects has been raised through private donors mostly during a recession, Fisher said. The Walker, for example, is doubling the size of its facility at a cost of $92 million. When the doors open in April, there will be a new performance space and theater, a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and scores of terraces and other public spaces. An enormous all-glass entrance will offer a view of art and the sculpture garden.
By pouring $125 million into its renovations, the Guthrie, the first repertory theater to open in the U.S., will have three performance spaces, including the restoration of its thrust stage with oversized jagged shingles hanging from the ceiling. There also will be a cantilevered lobby that extends over the Mississippi River like an outstretched arm. By wooing big-name architectural talent, Fisher said, “increasingly art and design institutions realize they can put themselves on the global map.”
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That is something well-known by Graves, who has rolled up his sleeves for the MIA’s $50 million three-story wing. He is, after all, a featured designer at Target Stores, another Minneapolis citizen that has attracted a strong following with its alluring designs.