Category: Design

New Use for a Bank

Included some of my favorite indoor spaces on my Downtown walk. This was originally the banking hall for the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, my first bank when I arrived in Minneapolis. The original space is quite recognizable, although it’s now the lobby of a Westin.

Former Factory

Walked around Downtown with a friend, picking out favorite buildings. This beauty was built as a facility for manufacturing farm equipment. Today, it’s a hotel with dramatic public spaces. An atrium, with exposed timber beams, soars through all six levels

Izzy’s Ice Cream

This week I bought our final Saturday evening ice cream treats from Izzy’s ice cream store just down the road from where we live. Covid-19, and the uncertainties it’s bringing, gate-crashed the business model; the store is closing. Izzy’s and our home are built on what was a polluted rail yard, a so-called brown field… Continue reading Izzy’s Ice Cream

The Willey House

On my cycle ride, down a dead-end street in an unassuming Minneapolis neighborhood: The Willey House. Built in 1934, it’s the first home Frank Lloyd Wright designed for a middle-income family. Although only the garage is visible from the street, the heritage is clear.

Eero and Eliel Saarinen in Minneapolis

Cycled to Christ Church Lutheran, completed 1949, hidden in a South Minneapolis residential neighborhood. The church members had opted for a Gothic structure, but fortunately a new pastor signed up Eliel Saarinen. In 1962, even more famous son, Eero, supervised an extension.

Local Starchitect

Walked to Vladimir Ossipoff’s IBM Building. The facade has staying power compared to many facades of the 1960’s. He designed the open-to-the-elements Honolulu Airport, and airports at Kahului, Maui, and Kona, Big Island. I once met his daughter, but didn’t realize the connection.

Guthrie Theater

It’s no accident the Guthrie Theater is close to our home. The theater moved to its current home in the Minneapolis Mill District in 2006 next to the Mill City Museum which had opened three years earlier. At the time, the choice of new location was brave. The Mill District was mostly derelict, and not… Continue reading Guthrie Theater

Model of Downtown

The Minneapolis skyways were 80 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the streets below, so I walked the skyways. Spotted a model of Downtown in Cesar Pelli’s Wells Fargo Center. For me, the Wells Fargo Center seems outclassed by the restraint of Philip Johnson’s IDS Center.