LA projects in Minneapolis

[Vanessa Ruiz]

Hi everyone,

I am a student, and will be traveling to Minneapolis this winter. While I’m there, I would love to visit any landscape architecture projects that you all might recommend checking out. I will be walking around a lot I’m sure, so I hope to stumble on some interesting places on my own, but a few pointers would be great since my online search has been just slightly fruitful.

Much appreciated,

Vanessa

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Tom Oslund has an exceptional design studio in Minneapolis. He lectured at Colorado State in 2008 and I had the good fortune of enjoying dinner with him and the other leaders of the SCASLA. Very nice guy. He does work all over the country but one project in MN that sticks out in my memory is the I35 Bridge reconstruction and memorial. If I were to find myself in the area, it would be on the top of my list of sites to visit along with Gold Medal Park, which if I remember correctly, isn’t far from the bridge, but don’t quote me on that. He also did some really neat things at the Twins Stadium, so check that out too. Even if you’re not a baseball person you’ll enjoy the unique design elements.

Have fun!!

http://www.oaala.com/index.htm

http://www.oaala.com/projects/gold_medal_park/gold_medal.htm
http://www.oaala.com/projects/I35bridge/i35bridge.htm
http://www.oaala.com/projects/Twins/twins.htm

[Terry DeWan, FASLA]

There is SO much so see and experience! You may want to start by getting the back issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine when the Annual Meeting was held there a in 2006

http://www.asla.org/nonmembers/lam/lam_index06/lam_m.htm

DOn’t miss Michael Van Valkenburg Minneapolis sculpture garden.

Another firm’s work to explore is Coen + Partners:

http://www.coenpartners.com/work/urban/minneapolis-central-library/

And then there’s NicollettMall… a landmark in urban design that Larry Halprin did in 1967. There’s a description in the AIA Guide:

http://books.google.com/books?id=T9axsT5T8fcC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=nicollet+mall+minneapolis+halprin&source=bl&ots=j3LjD-CkXX&sig=Tv7o1vARtOFzld0OkFzZYnQXp20&hl=en&ei=Rh_xTNI-goGUB_q0vIwN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=nicollet%20mall%20minneapolis%20halprin&f=false

See M Paul Friedburg’s Peavey Plaza on Nicollet Mall, especially when full of people.

The Federal Reserve Bank plaza has some wonderful public art and 3-D interpretive exhibits.

Enjoy… Dress warmly!!

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Nice! Thank you for the addition sites… I knew I was missing some important ones.

[Tanya Olson]

Terry’s suggestion of finding the Minneapolis LAM edition is a great idea. I’m sure most of the following is in there….Martha Swartz – designed plaza in front the the federal courthouse downtown, Oehme and VanSweden at the University of MN west bank campus (still pretty nice in winter and right across from the design school) and MUST SEE the Weissman Art Museum designed by Frank Gehry on the west bank of the campus (it is particularly sublime in the winter especially viewed from the pedestrian bridge crossing the Mississippi) and his giant glass fish at the Walker Art Museum’s sculpture gardens in the glass house in addition to the Walker sculpture gardens in general. Walk across the bridge over Hennepin Avenue to Loring Park. There is an interesting pedestrian only garden-walkway between the east side of Loring Park and Peavy Plaza – between Blaisdell Avenue, Hennepin Avenue and 11th street. I think Halprin might have designed that too and I think its still in tact.
As a side note – the sculpture gardens are a good lesson in planning for trees’ mature size….the arbor vitae hedges are starting to suffer from overcrowding and too much shade, which is fascinating because it was such a hot dry site when the sculpture gardens were installed (I lived a couple of blocks away from it when it was being installed and just visited it again for the first time in about 10 years this summer.)

Gold Medal Park is fairly close to the federal courthouse too and it is easy to see the downtown library on your way to the Twins stadium which is pretty cool like Thomas said. I particularly like the metal sculpture on the side of the parking garage at the stadium. Nicollet Mall isn’t the same Halprin design any more, but Peavy Plaza is still in tact.

The Mississippi River parkways are amazing. If you follow the parkway from the University of MN, it will take you to Minnehaha Falls, though you have to cross the river once. Got to see Minnehaha Falls – amazing in the winter.

And of course there is the whole lakes and parkways system. If you keep going on the street that you will probably park on to see the Walker (I can never remember the name of the street) you will meet up with the parkway around Lake of the Isles which will take you to the rest of the lakes. IF you have a car while you are there, that is. Public transportation is quite good, but won’t take you on the parkways at all.

If thats not enough for you, be sure to check out First Ave – a landmark in itself and a great place to see a show if you get a chance. Double on what Terry said – it will be COLD. Bundle up, be safe, and you’ll have a great time. I lived there for years without a car walking everywhere….
…and thats just Minneapolis! There are native american burial mounds on the bluffs above the river in St. Paul, etc etc etc.

[Terry DeWan, FASLA]

Wouldn’t it be great if every city had an illustrated listing of non-to-be-missed works of landscape architecture? Anybody up for organizing such a catalogue?

In the meantime, here’s a listing of public art projects in Minneapolis to further enliven you visit:

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/DCA/map.asp

[Vanessa Ruiz]

These are wonderful replies! Thank you all so much!
I can’t wait to make a map with these places for easy wayfinding, and if I keep all the info you’ve given me handy, I should be good as gold.

[Vanessa Ruiz]

Terry,

That would indeed be a wonderful resource! One way to do it would be in Google Maps. Any gmail user can create personal maps that are shared with the public. These maps can be expanded or edited by anyone, making it an ideal medium for a collaborative map.

Here’s some info I found on the abilities of collaborative Google maps: http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2009/01/collaborative-google-ma…

Using Google Maps has its disadvantages of course– one being that it doesn’t have the formality of an official website, which might make it harder to search for.

Creating this map also means creating a formal title for the map, and a description. If this seems like a good medium, perhaps we can cook up a nice description and a title and start spreading the word. What do you all think?

[Terry DeWan, FASLA]

Don’t rely too much on the map… use your intuition to see where people are walking (or x-country skiing!). Get a general sense of where you want to go, and then wander!..

[Thomas J. Johnson]

What about making it an “app” so that you can see significant landscapes in the vicinity of your your current location? It could include information such as when it was built, who designed it, what awards it won, etc. Maybe the app could create a walking tour of landscapes within a 2 mile radius. That would be pretty sweet…

[Tosh K]

Check with the MNASLA – they had a map of downtown with projects at the annual meeting.

map apps would be awesome: an ASLA national project? or maybe a TCLF project? anyone? It would be a great marketing tool for us.

In germany every major city has a waterproof map of significant projects available at local bookstores, was great to have such a resource.

[Chris Whitis]

We’ve it quite a few of the sites mentioned in Minneapolis on sitephocus.com and have a pretty extensive collection of images of sites broken down by city. Here’s a link to Minneapolis

[Vanessa Ruiz]

Thanks, that’s a great resource!

[Jordan Lockman]

Check this out from the 2006 convention that was in town.

It will be cold, but still lots to see if you dress warm enough.

1. If I had one stop to make I would check out the river front area, where gold medal park, guthrie theatre, new 35w bridge, stone arch bridge area.
2. The new Baseball stadium is nice, more notably is Target Plaza, the transition between downtown and the new stadium happens above a major highway with scupture, plantings, and is a great example of what Landscape Architecture can do.
3. I also like the sculpture garden.

[Jordan Lockman]

What kind of things are you looking for?

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