Building Minnesota: A Look at Local Architecture

In this podcast, Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos of Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA) discuss the recently completed student center at Tulane Univeristy in New Orleans. There are many photos of the center at the Building Minnesota website. So check that out as you listen. The address: buildingminnesota.blogspot.com. The post is dated November 28, 2007 or you can use the search engine on the blog to find the story and photos.

Since December 2005, we've been documenting the construction of "Andrew's Modern House," a Minneapolis house designed by architect Julie Snow for client Andrew Blauvelt. We last visited in November 2006, when the house was under construction. Now Andrew has moved in. Come along for a tour!

In this interview, Vincent James and Jennifer Yoos discuss their influences and inspirations. James is the son of an anthropologist who took his family to Africa, Asia and Europe. As a teenager, James had building photograph competitions with his father and also admired his father's collection of architectural monographs. Yoos' father taught at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. That was her first encounter with extraordinary architecture. Today the pair design buildings together as part of Vincent James Associates Architecture (VJAA) in Minneapolis. Unlike Frank Gehry or Thomas Mayne, James and Yoos say they are "trying to avoid a repetition of the same kind of style."

Vincent James Associates Architects (VJAA) is a firm that's probably better known outside Minneapolis than here at home. "We're not really marketers," says Jennifer Yoos, a principal at VJAA in a conversation with Todd Melby for a Building Minnesota podcast. "All of our projects seem to come to us from other architects. Our personalities, we're not really that outgoing. "Recent projects include a student center at American University in Beirut and Tulane University in New Orleans. James teaches at Harvard University and Tulane University. VJAA Architects has won national AIA design awards for the Type/Variant House and the Dayton House.

In Minneapolis, the riverfront district has become a showcase for edgy, modernist architecture. While the Guthrie Theater has grabbed most of the attention, the area also includes the Humboldt Mill condos, Mill City Museum and Gold Medal Park. In a few months, another addition will arrive on the scene: The MacPhail Center for Music.

In Minneapolis, the riverfront district has become a showcase for edgy, modernist architecture. While the Guthrie Theater has grabbed most of the attention, the area also includes the Humboldt Mill condos, Mill City Museum and Gold Medal Park. In a few months, another addition will arrive on the scene: The MacPhail Center for Music.

Jim Dayton is the architect behind many innovative Twin Cities buildings, including Minnetonka Center for the Arts, Bookman Lofts, Bookman Stacks and now MacPhail Center for Music. Dayton's first job in architecture was with Frank Gehry's Santa Monica, California firm. In this interview, we learn more about Dayton's thinking behind material choices at MacPhail: Zinc, Cor-ten steel, etc. We also find out why he chose to work for Gehry and not Thom Mayne at Morphosis after graduation.

Visit Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis in this photo podcast. All photos, except historical ones of architects and designers (and the TWA Terminal) are by Scott Theisen.

Dick Gliem, 82, is one of the oldest members of Christ Church Lutheran in Minneapolis. He was at the church in 1949 when the Eilel Saarinen building was under construction. Back then, Christ Church Lutheran had four Sunday services — three in the morning and one in the evening. Today, the church has just one service.

Unless you’re an architecture buff, you probably haven’t heard of Christ Church Lutheran. It’s an elegant, modern church that was named one of the “31 buildings that changed American life.” And it’s right in our own backyard.

(2004 story) Fergus Falls, Minnesota faces a big historic preservation challenge: How to save the Fergus Falls Regional Treatment Center. Originally known as the state mental hospital, this 114-year-old building was once home to about 2,000 people. Todd Melby has the story. For an update on the building, go to the Building Minnesota blog at http://buildingminnesota.blogspot.com/.

(2004 story) Finding new uses for historic buildings is seldom easy. In Minneapolis, the Grain Belt Brewery and Milwaukee Road Depot both sat idle for more than two decades before developers found new uses for them. So, what does one do with a vacant state mental hospital that’s nearly one-third of a mile long and just forty-feet wide? Todd Melby traveled to Fergus Falls, Minnesota to find out. For an update on the mental hospital, go to the Building Minnesota blog at http://buildingminnesota.blogspot.com/.

John Dwyer started a Minneapolis firm called Shelter Architecture, but his big project at the moment isn't meant to house people. The Clean Hub is a device designed to provide clean water, electricity and toilet facilities for urban slums and refugee camps in poor parts of the world. Dwyer will make a presentation on the Clean Hub at Solutions Twin Cities at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. Tickets are $6.

Mike Schrock is a Minneapolis-based architect whose design of an Elk River school is aiming for LEED certification. Leadership in Energy and Envrionmental Design or LEED is a "nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buidlings." To go for the green, architects' efforts are graded. "LEED drives a lot of the design," Mike Schrock says. "There's so much decided before you start your building. I think that's really confining for a lot of architects, but I really like it."

In the past few years, it seems as if every major art institution in Minneapolis has gotten a facelift or a new building. The Guthrie Theatre, Walker Art Center and Minneapolis Institute of Arts all hired big-name, out-of-town architects for their makeovers. Now it's the Weisman Art Museum's turn.