urbanMSP

This looks like a visitor from the late seventies or early eighties. It’s not awful, but it feels old before it’s time.

This is actually one of ESG’s better designs. The masking of the parking podium is better than most and the building is actually interesting. It is not another featureless box and it has more grace than the heavy-handed beast next door.

Given the fact that this is an ESG design I have a certain dread that the panels in the most recent renders are indeed precast. Hopefully they will abandon that possibility and either go for all glass or metal panels. This still has potential to be a good addition to the skyline.

Seth, You are absolutely right. The blue bear is peering into the Denver Convention Center. It is one of the more clever pieces of public sculpture I’ve seen. It is actually quite striking when seen in person and delightfully whimsical at the same time. We and m any other Coloradans had bears, couga...

Snow Kreilich is one of the more creative firms in town. The approach on this is interesting. They avoid a kitschy effort to copy the style of the warehouses and other historic North Loop structures, and they both preserve what is historic and distinguish everything that is new as being new, but sim...

It looks like full scale construction on this project is finally happening. Essential has to be one of the biggest employers in Duluth. This will become the Eastern gateway to downtown Duluth. Hopefully the residential tower that has been proposed will soon follow. Unfortunately, the residential tow...

I’m guessing that the necessary maintenance costs on equipment that is no longer needed made it practical to remove the microwave horns. Is the whole crown going away? The first (bottom) layer of the crown could be worth saving, but if that has to go away as well, the building itself is a pretty dec...

Thanks for posting the pics on several of the projects going on, Bapster2006. If all of the projects in the current lineup go through, this view is going to change dramatically.

This is a decent and inoffensive addition to the neighborhood. I agree that it won't soon be seen in any architecture journals and it may have carried the contextualism flag a bit too far, offering no real new variations on the theme.

Thanks, I had not seen this render. The entry is much more dramatic than anything I had seen for this before and the signage is anything but invisible.

The City of Lakes and Minneapolis Public Service buildings are good remnants of the period. I only hope they can find someone that would want to use them with out destroying the shells.

It seems to me that when the bank building went up, it was white - which at least referenced the Yamasaki gem at Washington and Hennepin. The current buff color does the building no favors. It fit the neighborhood better when the Jaguar dealership was across the street, but at this point it does not...

The talk on SkyscaperCity is that this project will, finally break ground in September.

It’s too bad this project doesn’t include replacing the 21st Century Bank Building. It is a sad remnant of the worst architecture to come out of the massive urban “renewal” project of the 1960’s. Perhaps once this tower is complete, the bank building could be tackled for a scaled down companion to t...

Of all of the finished, underway or proposed new buildings in the downtown area, this holds the potential to be one of the best. Of course, the reality could still fall far from the renders, but I am hopeful. I am really anxious for the steel to get up and the curtain wall to begin being installed.

is the Rand Tower hotel project going to get it’s own thread, or does it already have one that I’ve missed?

A recent visit to the Twin Cities Outlet Mall in Eagan was like a walk through the international terminal at Schipol In Amsterdam. I heard as many different languages in a 45 minute walk around the mall as I have walking through the crazy busy terminal in Amsterdam. I am not surprised at the visitor...

The retaining wall stones look like a bit of a cross between an odd kind of architectural tokenism and a heavy handed Zen garden. It looks like a low maintenance idea that will tend to collect refuse blown in off the street and become a higher maintenance reality.

Does anyone have any current photos of the Metro Transit police building. This is a surprisingly interesting design.

This hotel is decent enough, but it is surprising that, at least in the renders - and so far in the construction, it is almost impossible to tell that there is a major performance venue contained within the site. Of course, that is something that could be remedied without major changes to the struct...