roving tour of minneapolis

so on saturday, i joined scooty on a tour of minneapolis parks and public spaces. he had a project where he needed to take pictures of folks interacting in public spaces - i just used it as an excuse to wander the city pretending to be a tourist.... here are the fruits of the excursion (just a random smattering, perhaps i'll post more in the future).

oh, and ignore the colossal fuck up to the right - i have no idea why my sidebar went all the way down to the bottom of the page; i'm trying to get that fixed tho'. be kind to my mistakes.

this is the front of the new central library for the minneapolis public library. it's 2 weeks old - i have many pics of this space. it is a stunning architectural space - in a later post, i will show more images of the cesar pelli designed space. the cantilevered "sails" over the building are a site to be hold. http://www.mpls.lib.mn.us/newcentrallib.asp

and the rear of the building

i love card catalogs. i'm not sure, but they are so cool... there is something about flipping through a card catalog in order to find your book that i find incredibly comforting. hmmm...

talk about incredible architecture - this is the new guthrie theater. i was very hesitant when word that the original guthrie was going to be torn down and moved to a new space on the banks of the mississippi in the warehouse district. i'm such an old theater whore, and the original guthrie is where i fell in love with all things theater. i have many fond memories of the original space - but i gotta say, i'm very excited to get inside the new building.
the new 3 theater space was designed by french architect jean nouvel - it's his first major north american building. the blue walls are actually called a ‘skin’ and images from the guthrie’s past will be broadcast on the skin allowing the theater building to have a multi-dimensional feel.
additionally, note the cantilevered "bridge" - apparently cantilevered is the word of the day -

another view - note how the round corner of the guthrie mirrors the old round grain silo's of the minneapolis waterfront.

just west of the guthrie lies the new mill city museum - the mill city museum actually is composed of a number of abandoned grain and flour mills from the turn of the century (19th to 20th). the "bombed-out" building in the foreground is actually part of the meeting/public space for the museum. you can rent it out for events (i'm thinking renting it for an upscale dinner i'm planning next year) - they have an amazing clear tent to protect you from the minnesota elements as well. the building actually exploded in the late 80's causing the beruit-esque look.

self-portrait. now, i hate pictures of myself, but this was just too cool. this was taken at the walker art museum's minneapolis sculpture garden (http://garden.walkerart.org/index.wac). this is a reflection of me taken in the 'two-way mirror punched steel hedge labryinth' created by dan graham. http://garden.walkerart.org/artwork.wac#head. i love the ghostly image.

this is actually my favorite piece of sculpture in the entire garden - i probably have about 100 photo's of this from the past few years - i'm drawn to it's simplicty and grandure constantly. it's elsworth kelly's 'double curve' -http://garden.walkerart.org/artwork.wac#head - in the background you can see part of the conservatory (my second favorite place in the garden). more on that in the future i'm sure.

minneapolis, aka the city of lakes (indeed minne is native american for water and polis, of course greek for city), you can't drive in a straight line in the city without hitting water of some sort. the above picture is the boat rental building on the northeast edge of lake calhoun. http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=4&parkid=263

again, more boats. gotta love boats if you live in minneapolis :-)

music heard while writing this post:

passion / peter gabriel