Good Morning Andrew
Conceptually Oriented, Practically Confused
Public | Private
Calhoun Square in Uptown, Minneapolis is undergoing a transformation to make it a viable commercial space. So far they have succeeded in making several transitional public spaces. We’ll see how this plays out. Will the tenants be drawn to these new spaces? Most importantly, will any people actually fill these new environments?
MPLS – Future Proof
I began working inside downtown Minneapolis in the summer of 2008. At the time, I didn’t think about how working inside of a carpeted and climate-controlled urbanized shopping mall would effect me. Now, nearly two years later, I can say that I have been profoundly effected. After working within the architecture of corporate America on the tundra, I think I am ready to live and work on a space-station. Think about it, just for a passing second – I spend almost my entire day in an air-sealed, sterilized, series of tubes-esque work environment surrounded by a barely habitable climate. The next step has to be a similar environment orbiting the earth…
Vault Adventure
One of the many perks of my job is getting to go on random treks through the two buildings that make up the college. Yesterday I had the pleasure of traversing through the underground vaults of our building on Hennepin Avenue in MPLS. It was a very creepy and smelly place… but the abandoned bank vaults were too good to turn down. Take a looksy.
Nesting
Beginning to dwell
Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space has been filling my imagination as I work through the most intense nesting instinct I’ve had in years. His focus on the lived aspects of architecture over the historical and formal are the imaginative quirks that served as inspiration for my work as an artist and as an apartment dweller. At the moment, I am gazing over my apartment as it lays in the throws of a passionate clean-up, updating, and general sprucing.
Peeling back the layers...
I didn’t really expect the archeological findings of my new apartment… however, so far I have fought my way through about 15 layers of paint. Each decade is accurately represented:
- 1980′s: multi-colored pastel wallpaper
- 1970′s: citrus yellow
- 1960′s: light green
- 1950′s: light yellow
- 1940′s: back to the light green
- 1930′s: original light butter-nut squash brown…
Ah… time travel.
Les Portes Du Souvenir
Daylight Savings Chart
As I was walking into work this morning, I realized that living in the far north of the continental US has its benefits. While I may complain that the city is often unpopulated and boring at times, it is almost always a great place to turn to for a healthy dose of surrealism. For example, my early morning schedule (arriving to work at 6:00 AM) means that I encounter downtown Minneapolis under a heavy drape of darkness. This in itself is not strange… but there is this odd liveliness to the downtown, which continues despite the pitch black sky outside. It is roughly the same vibe as living inside of a space station, moon base, or other outpost like environment.
Again… rambling.
November 03, 2009: Airports
MSP - Modern Gem
Everyone has photographic fetishes. And, I have a thing for airports. Maybe it is the intersection of private desire to travel with very public, non-descript, and functional architecture. Or maybe I just like photographing in places where I know my film may be confiscated.
MSP - A Sign of Life
On a recent trip to New York I had the distinct pleasure of flying out of the old, Lindbergh terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. It is exceptionally unfortunate what time has done to this ultra-modern, mid-century diamond in the rough. It has been added to seemingly endlessly to the point that one cannot see the front facade through all the parking garages and overpasses. Inside the airport, depressing gates and shopping mall corridors make it seem like a bad 1980s theme park. (Remember the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – like that)
Safe (For The Moment)
October 13, 2009
I’m not sure if I am caught in an atemporal vortex or if Minneapolis is hitting some sort of built-environment equilibrium. While walking home yesterday, humming various bits of soundtrack to myself, I noticed that my city is engaged in a process consisting of equal parts renewal and equal parts decline. As the first image testifies, the elements of renewal tend to be laden with a heavy handed, pig-wearing-lipstick aesthetic.
In true wabi-sabi fashion, while the parking garage is being turned into a disco-vomit-colored monstrosity, the businesses across the street are slowly being ground away…
October 13, 2009