Andrew Schroeder

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?

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.

Via US National Archives via Flickr

I recently traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska – the city where I studied at the University of Nebraska. After being away from “The Good Life” for over a year, it was refreshing, frightening, and beautiful to return. I would summarize the feeling as being wound into a photographic cocoon. Enjoy a few tidbits…

And just in case you needed to have a Nebraska desktop wallpaper for a dual-screen set up.  The last two images will cover a 1680X1050 display. Enjoy!!!

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)

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

I am very lucky to have the friends that surround me (even if they are on the other side of the country). I might even say I am exceptionally lucky. For example, my friend Andrea sent me this great card from the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum in New York. At first glance it is simply a blank slate, ordinary piece of paper. But with a few twists… a pristine new architectural space is created. I have had this thing sitting on my desk… taunting me for the last few days. Taunting you say? How can paper-turned-space taunt someone?

Well, it is taunting me in the “unrealized potential” sector  that is located at the back of my brain (next to the part that craves the delicious muffins from Dunn Brothers).

Perhaps because of the city I live in, my view of architecture is becoming more and more static by the day. Instead of seeing architecture and buildings as sites of potential energy and social exchange, I’m too focused on the restraints, pathways, and barriers that are presented. How does one rectify this situation? Ah yes… by sneaking away to Mexico City again and photographing the informal architecture which shifts, like a sand dune in the sahara, over the city daily.

Wishful thinking… for a very busy Tuesday.

I’m taking a note from the EuroNews “No Comment” section and just posting some images today. After a rather confusing weekend, I am back to my daily grind. Here is just a small sampling of images captured this weekend as I wandered around the Mid-West… trying to get to know things a bit better.

A great site that is holding my attention hostage this morning. Check it out for a variety of fresh perspectives on one of the most important issues in the contemporary city. Few sites I have come across investigate what makes public spaces successful, desirable, and heavily used in the same way that Project for Public Spaces does. Joy.

And bit more of failed public space from my own travel experiences.