Walker Art Center, Minneapolis – Edward Larrabee Barnes, Completed 1971
Walker Art Center. Photo Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.
Location
Street: 725 Vineland Place
City: Minneapolis
State/Province: Minnesota
Postal Code: 55403
Latitude: 44.968222474852276
Longitude: -93.28866016676257
City: Minneapolis
State/Province: Minnesota
Postal Code: 55403
Latitude: 44.968222474852276
Longitude: -93.28866016676257
Identity of Building / Site
Name: Walker Art Center
Variant or former name: N/A*
*Institution formerly known as Walker Art Gallery. Edward Larrabee Barnes’ modernist building has always been Walker Art Center.
Primary Classification / Typology and Secondary Classification / Typology:
REC Recreation
EDC Education
Federal, State, or Local Designation(s) and Date(s): N/A
Terms of Protection, if any: N/A
Variant or former name: N/A*
*Institution formerly known as Walker Art Gallery. Edward Larrabee Barnes’ modernist building has always been Walker Art Center.
Primary Classification / Typology and Secondary Classification / Typology:
REC Recreation
EDC Education
Federal, State, or Local Designation(s) and Date(s): N/A
Terms of Protection, if any: N/A
History of Building / Site
Original Brief / Purpose:
The Walker Art Center grew from the personal collection of lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker, who opened the first art gallery west of the Mississippi in his home in 1879. In 1927 the first purpose-built building of the Walker Art Gallery opened. This Moorish-style building, designed by long-standing local firm Long and Thorshov, stood on the current site of the Walker Art Center, adjacent to two of Minneapolis’ main thoroughfares: Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues. This site, just southwest of downtown Minneapolis, was marshy terrain, built into a hill with soil removed for the construction of the adjacent intersection. (Vuchetich)
The Walker Art Gallery became the Walker Art Center through city strategic goals, public funds, the support of the Walker family, and the vision of Daniel S. Defenbacher. Defenbacher worked for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) establishing art centers across the country. In 1938 Minnesota Art Council (MAC) contacted Defenbacher to assist with their initiative. Archie Walker, T.B.’s son and then president of the Walker Art Gallery, supported MAC’s initiative. Defenbacher was interested; MAC raised the initial $5,000 required to leverage $35,000 of WPA salaries and support, and the Walker Art Gallery offered up their large facility and collection for the establishment of the center. Walker Art Center opened on January 4, 1940, with Defenbacher as its first Director. (Ruddy) This transformation indicated the impulse of the institution for civic optimism, widening public access, and moving towards modern ideas of design.
Defenbacher articulated a vision for the Walker Art Center (WAC) that would bring art and people together. The Everyday Art Gallery, opened in 1940, demonstrated this vision by putting artifacts of “useful art” (often, Modernist consumer products) on display in Minneapolis. This program flourished in the building through a facade renovation that updated the architectural style to a Moderne iteration. (Progressive Architecture, 1948) However, by the 1960s, the building had sunk nearly 13” into the marshy ground of Lowry hill. The board of directors hired Edward Larrabee Barnes for a remodel in 1966. Upon inspection of the sinking foundation, Barnes and the board determined that a new building was in order. (Northwest Architects, 1969)
Next door on Vineland Place, the 1963 Ralph Rapson design for the Guthrie Theater building set a modernist agenda for the site. A smaller building still on the site, Idea House II, was designed by William Friedman and Bauhaus-educated Hilde Reiss. The Walker’s director, Martin Friedman, was steeped in the design tradition of mid-century California and enthusiastic for a new building with greater capacity. In 1966, Barnes was early in his career but fresh from the completion of a 1963 home in Orono, MN, for John Cowles Jr., a member of the Walker’s board of directors and the CEO of a local newspaper. The progressive agenda of the Walker, modernist neighboring structures, and guidance of Griedman and the board of directors, provided for the direct hire of Barnes and set the design brief. As Mildred Friedman, wife of director Martin Friedman and interior designer of the Walker’s new building, said, “We are trying to create architecture that does not compete with art- to put the priorities in the right order.” Barnes worked with the board and staff of the Walker to develop a program that included education spaces, a shared entrance with the Guthrie Theater, and large galleries with the ability to be reconfigured. The $4.5 million budget caused a substitution in the building’s original exterior cladding, as the gray granite originally chosen exceeded budget costs and was switched for the subdued, deep purple brick used for the entirety of the exterior.
Dates of Commission / Completion: Commission:
1966 (c) / Start of site work: March 1969 (c) / Completion: May 15, 1971 (e)
Architectural and Other Designer(s):
Architect: Edward Larrabe Barnes
Associate in Charge: Alistair M. Bevington
Job Captain: Justin Lamb
Interiors: Mildred S. Friedman
Lighting Consultant: Donald Bliss
Acoustics Consultant: Ranger Farrell & Associates
Structural Engineers: Paul Weidlinger and Meyer, Borgman and Johnson, Inc.
Mechanical & Electrical Engineer: Gausman and Moore
General Contractor: Naugle-Leck, Inc.
Others Associated with Building / Site:
Walker Art Center Director: Martin Friedman
Original Brief / Purpose:
The Walker Art Center grew from the personal collection of lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker, who opened the first art gallery west of the Mississippi in his home in 1879. In 1927 the first purpose-built building of the Walker Art Gallery opened. This Moorish-style building, designed by long-standing local firm Long and Thorshov, stood on the current site of the Walker Art Center, adjacent to two of Minneapolis’ main thoroughfares: Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues. This site, just southwest of downtown Minneapolis, was marshy terrain, built into a hill with soil removed for the construction of the adjacent intersection. (Vuchetich)
The Walker Art Gallery became the Walker Art Center through city strategic goals, public funds, the support of the Walker family, and the vision of Daniel S. Defenbacher. Defenbacher worked for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) establishing art centers across the country. In 1938 Minnesota Art Council (MAC) contacted Defenbacher to assist with their initiative. Archie Walker, T.B.’s son and then president of the Walker Art Gallery, supported MAC’s initiative. Defenbacher was interested; MAC raised the initial $5,000 required to leverage $35,000 of WPA salaries and support, and the Walker Art Gallery offered up their large facility and collection for the establishment of the center. Walker Art Center opened on January 4, 1940, with Defenbacher as its first Director. (Ruddy) This transformation indicated the impulse of the institution for civic optimism, widening public access, and moving towards modern ideas of design.
Defenbacher articulated a vision for the Walker Art Center (WAC) that would bring art and people together. The Everyday Art Gallery, opened in 1940, demonstrated this vision by putting artifacts of “useful art” (often, Modernist consumer products) on display in Minneapolis. This program flourished in the building through a facade renovation that updated the architectural style to a Moderne iteration. (Progressive Architecture, 1948) However, by the 1960s, the building had sunk nearly 13” into the marshy ground of Lowry hill. The board of directors hired Edward Larrabee Barnes for a remodel in 1966. Upon inspection of the sinking foundation, Barnes and the board determined that a new building was in order. (Northwest Architects, 1969)
Next door on Vineland Place, the 1963 Ralph Rapson design for the Guthrie Theater building set a modernist agenda for the site. A smaller building still on the site, Idea House II, was designed by William Friedman and Bauhaus-educated Hilde Reiss. The Walker’s director, Martin Friedman, was steeped in the design tradition of mid-century California and enthusiastic for a new building with greater capacity. In 1966, Barnes was early in his career but fresh from the completion of a 1963 home in Orono, MN, for John Cowles Jr., a member of the Walker’s board of directors and the CEO of a local newspaper. The progressive agenda of the Walker, modernist neighboring structures, and guidance of Griedman and the board of directors, provided for the direct hire of Barnes and set the design brief. As Mildred Friedman, wife of director Martin Friedman and interior designer of the Walker’s new building, said, “We are trying to create architecture that does not compete with art- to put the priorities in the right order.” Barnes worked with the board and staff of the Walker to develop a program that included education spaces, a shared entrance with the Guthrie Theater, and large galleries with the ability to be reconfigured. The $4.5 million budget caused a substitution in the building’s original exterior cladding, as the gray granite originally chosen exceeded budget costs and was switched for the subdued, deep purple brick used for the entirety of the exterior.
Dates of Commission / Completion: Commission:
1966 (c) / Start of site work: March 1969 (c) / Completion: May 15, 1971 (e)
Architectural and Other Designer(s):
Architect: Edward Larrabe Barnes
Associate in Charge: Alistair M. Bevington
Job Captain: Justin Lamb
Interiors: Mildred S. Friedman
Lighting Consultant: Donald Bliss
Acoustics Consultant: Ranger Farrell & Associates
Structural Engineers: Paul Weidlinger and Meyer, Borgman and Johnson, Inc.
Mechanical & Electrical Engineer: Gausman and Moore
General Contractor: Naugle-Leck, Inc.
Others Associated with Building / Site:
Walker Art Center Director: Martin Friedman
Significant Alteration(s) with Date(s)
Addition; 1984:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: Edward Larrabee Barnes, architect; Hammel, Green, & Abrahamson, architect of record.
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE: In 1983, to accommodate the growing visitorship and programming of the Walker Art Center, the board of directors again tapped Edward Larrabee Barnes to add more space.
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: On the east side of the 1971 structure, Barnes designed a new gallery below ground level, with a 70-seat lecture room, new print study room, extended book shop, and art lab for children’s classes. An addition to the south provided more office, shop, and storage space.
Addition of Sculpture Garden, Addition of Conservatory; 1988:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: Edward Larrabee Barnes, architect; Quinnel Rothschild and Partners, landscape architect; David Fischer, superintendent of Minneapolis Park Board; Michael van Valkenburgh Associates and Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, landscape architect (conservatory interior gardens).
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE: The Walker Art Center’s power team of architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and the director, Martin Friedman, had long had their eyes on the land across Vineland Place, to the north of the Walker. Kenwood Gardens was destroyed in the 1960s when the freeway was constructed over Hennepin/Lyndale Avenues, and the site was used for equipment storage. In the 1970s, the land was mostly empty and unused. In 1981 David Fischer became superintendent of Minneapolis Park Board. Friedman and Fischer collaborated on a private/public partnership between the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Park Board that would become the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: The 7.5 acre Minneapolis Sculpture Garden was designed by Barnes, who by then was in what architectural critic and professor emeritus at University of Minnesota Tom Fisher described as his Postmodern phase. The symmetrical garden contains four rooms, defined by plants and a cross axis. This design references Italian gardens and Renaissance gardens, in stark contrast to the late modernist 1971 building. The Garden terminated in the north with a lake surrounding Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s sculpture “Spoonbridge and Cherry,” commissioned by Friedman and funded by the foundation of local art collector, Frederick R. Weisman. This art piece has become an icon for the city of Minneapolis. The Cowles Conservatory, also designed by Barnes, is a skeletal gazebo structure with interior gardens originally designed by Michael van Valkenburgh Associates and Barbara Stauffacher Solomon.
Expansion (Sculpture Garden); 1992:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., landscape architect.
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE:
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: The expansion of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden began in 1992 with a 3.5 acre addition to the north side. The Regis Garden comprised an arc path with a row of hedges and linden trees delineating the original territory from the new.
Renovation, Addition (Building); 2005:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: Herzog de Meuron, architect; Hammel, Green, and Abrahamson, architect of record.
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE: In 1991, Kathy Halbreich was appointed as the fourth director of the Walker Art Center and announced a new agenda to refocus the Walker’s approach to incorporating multiple disciplines in Art and Design and engage a growing audience. The 1993 publication of the Walker’s five-year plan depicted a series of three overlapping circles representing the visual, performing, and media arts. By 1999, the growth of the Walker in the past decade coincided with one of the largest building booms for museums in the United States and worldwide. The publication of a new long-range plan in 1999 announced the Walker’s intentions to expand the building and emphasize ‘active engagement’ as the central goal. The board of the Walker Art Center hired Herzog & de Meuron directly, with no design competition, citing the firm’s tendency to invent new approaches for each project. Herzog de Meuron were to address the desire for more transparency at the Walker
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: Herzog de Meuron’s design for the addition of the Walker Art Center added 110,000 square feet of floor space, much of it stacked in a new tower configuration, echoing the shape and massing of the 1971 gallery tower. The new cube, as Herzog de Meuron referred to the mass, was placed to the south on Hennepin/Lyndale Avenues but rotated to jut a corner out in a cantilever over the sidewalk. A transparent, double-paned hallway runs parallel to the street and connects the two cubes, with additional gallery space tucked behind and nestled in the slope of the expanded sculpture garden on the west side of the building. Central gathering spaces further the design intent to provide multiple ‘town square’ experiences within the Walker.
The addition responds to the original Barnes design and the context of the Walker in several ways. The Guthrie Theater long since demolished, the addition relocated the entrance to the east side of the building, drawing visitors in from the busy street and connecting to landmarks that the architects identified along Hennepin. The classical revival styles of churches along Hennepin inspired ornamentation within the building, with a brocade textile pattern forming the basis for several screens and grilles across the interior. In response to the helical circulation of the gallery space in the 1971 building, the 2005 addition spirals outwards, expanding gallery space at the ground floor and using celebrating interim space by sprinkling lounges, niches, and tiny galleries along the way between exhibition rooms. The interior finishes of the addition draw in the materials from the Barnes building, using plum-colored brick similar to the exterior of the existing in the flooring of the addition, and the white terrazzo flooring of the original galleries in the walls of the addition’s hallways and circulation spaces. A key distinction the addition makes from the existing is the incorporation of ornamental surfaces; where the Barnes building has none, the Herzog de Meuron design is wrapped in patterns, from the crinkly aluminum facade to the perforated screens of gallery walls and the outdoor plaza, and dramatically enveloping the new theater space. The architects took care to integrate exhibition programs and material continuity between the existing and the addition so that the existing is not perceived as old, but rather existing in a “dialogical relationship.” The addition is a strong architectural counterpoint and contributes necessary program space to further the Walker’s multidisciplinary mission.
Renovation, Expansion (Sculpture Garden) ; 2010:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: VJAA, architect; HGA, architect; Coen+Partners, landscape architect.
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE: The Guthrie Theater, a modernist building designed by Ralph Rapson, adjacent on Vineland Place and once with a shared entrance to the Walker, was demolished in 2006. This left an empty expanse of approximately 12,000 square feet to be incorporated into the “Open Field” project. The goal of the project was to provide a new entry to the Walker and improved outdoor spaces with infrastructure for concert events, large-scale art installations, and other programming.
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: The slope west of the Walker that was once the shared location to the Walker and the Guthrie was transformed into an upper hill dotted with sculptures and architectural spaces and a lower level with space for events, gathering, educational programs, and projected film. A new entry on the northwest side opened into the Barnes building lobby and provides a glimpse of both the helical circulation of the 1971 building and a path into the 2005 Herzog de Meuron addition.
Renovation (Sculpture Garden); Renovation, Addition (Building); 2017:
PERSONS/ORGANIZATIONS INVOLVED: HGA Architects and Engineers; Inside Outside, landscape architects; Oslund and Associates, landscape architects.
CIRCUMSTANCES/REASONS FOR CHANGE: The “Open Field” project in 2010 started the process of converting the land to the west of the Walker to an outdoor space for programming and renovating the existing building to reorient the entry back to its original location on Vineland Place. Changing programming, acquisition of additional sculptures, and a new director of the Walker Art Center prompted a redesign of the sculpture garden.
EFFECTS OF CHANGE: The entry pavilion on Vineland Place, designed by HGA Architects and Engineers, replaces the “Open Field” design of 2010 with a minimal, contemporary design nestled into the slope. Taking inspiration from the 1971 Barnes design for the Walker, this sleek design is a pared-down pavilion with flat surfaces. A strong horizontal overhang is emblazoned “WALKER” in large letters, nodding visually to the institution’s tradition since 1971 of using the large, blank walls for exhibition advertisements and modern art installations. The entryway is delineated with a bright yellow wrapping the hallway into the lobby, at which the visitor may turn left to enter the Barnes building’s existing lobby, or turn right to enter the restaurant. This renovation also included a recladding of the original Barnes structure, ensuring its solidity for years to come.
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, now split across two sites by Vineland Place, transformed again with this renovation. South of Vineland and west of the Walker, the Wurtele Upper Garden was designed by Inside Outside with sketch assistance from David Adjaye and AiWei Wei in the original visioning phases.This dramatic design includes discrete zones with areas of gridded plantings connected by switchbacks and jagged pathways. Dotted with sculpture, notably James Turrell’s “Sky Pesher”, the design accentuates visibility to the art on display. Across Vineland, the original Minneapolis Sculpture Garden of 1988 received new updates designed by Oslund and Associates. The formal layout of the garden did not change but improvements were made across the site to infrastructure and stormwater management. The walls of the Cowles Conservatory were removed and the interior plantings removed to create an open area pavilion.
Current Use
The Walker Art Center retains its original program as a multidisciplinary arts institution. The building now includes 65,000 square feet of exhibition space, a performing arts theater, film screening theater, and restaurant. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is a partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board and Walker Art Center. The Walker is world renowned for the programming in visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. The 1971 building designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes is incorporated into renovation and enjoys continued use.
Current Condition
The current condition of the Walker Art Center is as an actively maintained and celebrated arts institution. Each renovation elaborates on the existing 1971 building, and with additional square feet added to the site over the years, the Walker has grown into a large and varied campus. True to the intent of the 2010 and 2017 renovation, the main entry to the Walker has been completed relocated to Vineland Place. A parking garage entry on Vineland Place routes visitors off the busy Hennepin/Lyndale throughway and provides an interior entry to the building. The entry added by the 2005 Herzog de Meuron-design renovation on Hennepin/Lyndale has acted as a secondary entrance since 2010. In 2023, the Walker announced the opening of a new store that will see a reuse of the interior of the lobby space and door on the east side of the building.
The 1971 Edward Larrabee Barnes design for the Walker did not include much by means of addressing the landscape. The interior-oriented architectural language of this existing building was opened to create areas of transparency and dialog with the surrounding green spaces. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is home to several iconic sculptures: Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge by Siah Armajani, and, as of 2017, the large blue rooster sculpture titled “Hahn/Cock” by Katharina Fritsch. These highly visible sculptures further the idea that the current condition of the Walker Art Center is less introverted than the 1971 building, with artwork spilling out into public space. The Walker is a celebrated institution in the Twin Cities with no signs of stopping. If the current trajectory continues, any future renovations will enhance the site while respecting the original Late Modern design from 1971.
The 1971 Edward Larrabee Barnes design for the Walker did not include much by means of addressing the landscape. The interior-oriented architectural language of this existing building was opened to create areas of transparency and dialog with the surrounding green spaces. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is home to several iconic sculptures: Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge by Siah Armajani, and, as of 2017, the large blue rooster sculpture titled “Hahn/Cock” by Katharina Fritsch. These highly visible sculptures further the idea that the current condition of the Walker Art Center is less introverted than the 1971 building, with artwork spilling out into public space. The Walker is a celebrated institution in the Twin Cities with no signs of stopping. If the current trajectory continues, any future renovations will enhance the site while respecting the original Late Modern design from 1971.
Description
General Description:
The site of the Walker Art Center is adjacent to two of Minneapolis’ main thoroughfares, Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues. The streets are parallel to the east side of the site of the 1971 Edward Larrabee Barnes design for the Walker, intersecting in an X at Groveland Place. At the start of construction for the Barnes design, Vineland Place, the road to the north of the site, led to a tree-filled neighborhood of large mansions and separated the Walker’s site from Kenwood Gardens, located on what would become the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden by the end of the 20th century.
The north facade on Vineland Place was the location of a shared entry between the Walker Art Center and the Tyrone Guthrie Theater, designed by Ralph Rapson and located to the west on Vineland Place. The Guthrie’s perforated facade was a playful counterpoint to the Walker’s plum-brick exterior and monolithic massing.
The central mass of the Walker Art Center, comprising six floors of galleries, is a brick wrapped tower planted squarely on the northeast corner of the site. Each side of the building is virtually blank, the elevations depicted in Barnes’ drawings show virtually no rendering, simply flat surfaces punctured with few rectangular openings. From the ground floor, a three story pedestal is topped with sculpture courts along the north and east elevations, offsetting the remaining three stories of the gallery tower. Volumetric, boxy, and introverted, the design fits well with Late Modernist style and resembles some minimalist sculpture acquired by the Walker in this period, by the likes of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. This style, artistic and architectural, favors dimensional experience, and the composition of the exterior form is experienced by many traveling on the Hennepin & Lyndale.
In the original Barnes design, from the shared entry with the Guthrie theater, a visitor to the Walker turns east into the museum lobby. A visitor may then visit the book shop, auditorium, or be drawn into the central circulation sequence, a tight staircase going up the center of the building, with galleries and terraces spinning out along the helical circulation. As the visitor moves up the spaces, scale changes of the gallery volumes are made perceptible by subtle formal moves: a skylight, a small stair, and increasing height from ten feet in Gallery 1 up to 18 feet in Gallery 6. The interior finishes are minimal, reflecting the stated goal of Barnes and the interior designer, Mildred Freidman, to create a backdrop that shows off the art on display. Gallery 6 contains a glass wall, showing off three terraces at the fourth and fifth levels above the ground plane. These gardens in the sky culminate the sequence of expansion by blowing the roof off, using the city and sky as backdrop for the art displayed outside.
Construction Period:
The construction of the new building began with the demolition of the 1927 structure still standing in 1969. Edward Larrabee Barnes had been hired by the Walker Art Center to renovate this building, but upon inspection it was revealed that the building was more than a foot below grade, sinking into the marshy slope. The structure was not viable and a new building was commissioned, with special care given to the geotechnical considerations of the site. While construction was underway, the Walker’s art collection went on temporary loan to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, St. Paul Art Center, and other museums. The Walker continued to put on exhibitions and performances around town, temporarily adopting the title of “museum without walls.”
Reinforced concrete comprises the main structure of the building. Precast T-beams at significant structural moments in the building are exposed in several interior ceilings, dramatizing the long span and otherwise invisible structure. These pre-stressed concrete T-beams were cast in Wells, Minnesota, just 120 miles south of the site.
The exterior of the building is plum colored iron-spot brick in its entirety. Interior finishes are minimal, with white terrazzo throughout the gallery and program spaces. Construction proceeded according to the 24-month schedule. The topping-out beam was lowered into place on April 7, 1970. During construction, the Walker Art Center carried out its first ever public funding campaign, soliciting members of the public and corporations to add to the funds secured from the T.B. Walker Foundation.
Original Physical Context:
The site was defined by the adjacency to major throughways running parallel to the east, Hennepin & Lyndale Avenues, and existing buildings on the site. The 1927 Moorish-style building, designed by long-standing local firm Long and Thorshov, was a boxy structure with a symmetrical plan and applied ornament. A 1944 renovation had changed some ornamentation but the building and site were relatively unchanged. To the north of the site was Kenwood Gardens, a formally designed park just across Vineland Place from the Walker property line. This site was on the southwest edge of the more commercial downtown, with several recreation destinations nearby to the east and Hennepin/Lyndale acting as a border to a tree-lined upscale residential area to the west.
Evaluation
Technical:
The structural system of the 1971 Edward Larrabee Barnes design for the Walker Art Center is reinforced concrete slabs with precast T-beams. These precast T-beams were made in Wells, Minnesota, about a two-hours drive from the site in Minneapolis, by Wells Concrete Products. The T-beams are visible from the interior of the building at key moments in the building, dramatizing the long span they support. The interior is free of columns, allowing for maximum flexibility in programming. The exterior of the building is plum-colored ironspot brick, which was removed entirely and replaced in 2017 to ensure the integrity of the exterior envelope. There is a high degree of technical mastery in the design, but the materials and systems are not remarkably innovative for the period.
Social:
The social agenda of the Walker Art Center’s board of directors throughout the 20th century spurred the choice of Edward Larrabee Barnes and the program brief to design a modern building to increase access to the arts in Minneapolis. By greatly increasing the size from the existing 1927 building, the design allowed the visitorship of the museum to increase, along with additional space for workers, storage, and display of new acquisitions.
Barnes received the commission in 1966. The next year, rising tensions in North Minneapolis broke out into riots, one of the 159 such events that occurred in the summer of 1967. In 1968, the American Indian Movement was founded in the Little Earth neighborhood of Minneapolis. This grassroots movement was responding to issues of systemic racism in the city. By 1969 the Barnes design was approved by the board of directors and permitted by the city to proceed with construction. The design does not respond or influence the significant social events that occurred in Minneapolis during the design period. New York-based architect Barnes did visit Minneapolis during the design process, but the design did not change very much from the initial scheme presented to the board. Elsewhere in Minneapolis, public housing was built in the Modernist style throughout this era, starting with Glendale Homes in 1952, the first townhome style family housing built for a public agency, and cresting mightily with the 1973 opening of Riverside Plaza, a highly visible De Stijl-inspired design by Ralph Rapson. By choosing a Late Modernist style for the Walker Art Center’s new building, the board aligned the goals of the institution with the social agenda of Modernist architecture seen elsewhere in Minneapolis.
Cultural & Aesthetic:
Edward Larrabee Barnes studied architecture under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, alongside noted architect I.M. Pei. In 1966, when Barnes received the commission, Modernism was in the Late period. Late Modern style is characterized by exaggerated structure, repetition of forms, and rhetorical concepts that play with paradox and experience. Pei’s Everson Museum of Art at Syracuse (opened 1968) and Barnes’ design for the Walker Art Center, demonstrate these ideas well. Volumetric and boxy, these buildings had few windows and subdued material palettes. In this sense, the architecture of the 1971 Walker Art Center building emulates the minimalist objects acquired by the institution in this period, by the likes of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. This style favors dimensional experience - the composition of objects changes as one walks around and observe shifting spatial relationships. True to the Late Modernist ethos for dimensional experience, Barnes designed with care for the flow of the building, creating a helical circulation similar to Frank Lloyd Wright’s design for the 1959 building of the Guggenheim in New York City. In Design Quarterly Barnes and Mildred Friedman (interior design of the building) described the design intent: “We are trying to create architecture that does not compete with art- to put the priorities in the right order.” Minimal finishes and airy, loftlike gallery spaces do not detract from the art on display.This is a true strength of Barnes’ design, and the new building gave the Walker Art Center the room it needed to grow.
The 1971 design for the Walker Art Center was the first museum commission for Barnes, who would go on to complete several notable museums, educational spaces, and civic buildings across the United States. Barnes’ status as a peer to Pei and student of Gropius and Breuer places him well within the lineage of Modernism as it spread in the United States. In 1974, the Minneapolis Institute of Art hired Kenzo Tange for an addition to their classical revival building. Local critic Bernard Jacob called the Walker “the first major local work of a well-known architect,” linking the two in an assertion of growing interest in Modernism in Minneapolis. The design for the Walker is a paradigmatic example of Late Modernism; the institution is a crucial component in the cultural fabric of Minneapolis.
Historical:
Peter Blake, a prominent architectural critic, wrote in 1974 that the Walker is “quite possibly, the finest American museum for modern art in operation today.” Blake’s review of the building’s “virtuosic” architectural design highlights the building’s ability to highlight artwork displayed within. According to Blake, the Walker’s 1971 building contributed to “shift[ing] the center of gravity of the American art world from New York to this rather intriguing little Midwestern city.” Contributing to this phenomenon, the Guthrie Theater was another modernist building on the site of the Walker, designed by local architect Ralph Rapson. The 1971 Barnes design provided a new entrance, shared between the Walker and the Guthrie. Cathy Madison, in her 2005 history of the Walker Art Center in Art Space, wrote that “...with simplicity and reserve, elegant proportions and sensitivity to materials, Barnes effectively counterbalanced the light, open airiness of the Guthrie.” This relationship represents the historical shift to the Late Modernist movement, and demonstrates the two buildings’ status as a cultural center for the city. Local architecture critic Bernard Jacob provides a counterpoint, arguing in 1971 that the exterior of the walker, “is big and tough and simple. It is so forcefully a ‘background building’ that it nearly overwhelms the Guthrie and renders it insignificant and background.” The design is significant in Barnes’ career, as he went on to elaborate on Late Modern themes first explored at the Walker in further designs. The design and building are also significant in the story of Minneapolis Modernism, acting as a midway point and amplifier for Modern designs going up across the Twin Cities. The 1971 Barnes design received primarily favorable reviews in critical announcements during the 1970s, and again during the 2000s when re-assessed by Herzog de Meuron was the design confirmed as a success to be responded to and elaborated upon in subsequent additions.
General Assessment:
The significance of the 1971 design for the Walker Art Center cannot be understated in its impact on the institution and the local arts community. The creation of this iconic Late Modern building cemented the institution's status as a champion of Modernism throughout the 20th century. The new building gave additional space for multidisciplinary programming, allowing the Walker to grow into a world renowned arts institution. Subsequent renovations and additions to the building have retained the character of the existing building, with referential design and scope to restore the original design and building materials. Edward Larrabee Barnes is a premier practitioner of Late Modernism, notable for his work across the United States. This design in Minneapolis helped launch his career to become the architect of choice for institutions across the country. Into the 21st century, the Walker has maintained a reputation for daring curation and attempts to welcome a shifting local population, with programming in recent years available in multiple languages and with increased accessibility. The 1971 design for the Walker Art Center is not under threat at this time and the institution shows no signs of slowing or stopping growth in the near future.
Documentation
Principal references:
(1948). Museum Facade, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Progressive Architecture, February 1948. Pp 48-49.
(1949). Where to See Everyday Art. Everyday Art Quarterly, Winter 1949-1950 (No. 13), pp. 1-11. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047161
“Coming Down.” Photo by Donald Black. Minneapolis Tribune. (Saturday, March 8, 1969): 22.
“New Walker Art Center building will open May 18.” Minneapolis Star. (Thursday, May 6, 1971): 10B-11.
“New Walker Center Gets Topping-Out Beam.” Photo by Duane Braley. Minneapolis Tribune. (Wednesday, April 8, 1970): 18.
“The Arts in Minneapolis: The Lobby is the Connection.” Progressive Architecture News Report. (November 1968). 43-44.
“The New Walker.” Northwest Architects. Volume XXXIII, Number 2. (January-February 1969): 18-36.
“Walker Art Center Exits Amids Cheers.” Minneapolis Tribune. (Friday, January 17, 1969): 21.
“Walker Art Center: More than a building…” Advertisement, Walker Art Center-Guthrie Theatre Construction Fund. Minneapolis Tribune. (Sunday, January 18, 1970): 37.
“Walker’s New Home is Taking Shape.” Photos by Donald Black. Minneapolis Tribune. (Sunday, March 15, 1970): 1B.
“We’re building more than a building!” Advertisement, Walker Art Center-Guthrie Theatre Construction Fund.. Minneapolis Tribune. (Sunday, March 9, 1979): 76.
About: Mission & History. Walker Art. https://walkerart.org/about/mission-history
Altman, Peter. “Walker Building is just what architect promised.” Minneapolis Star. 18 May 1971.
Altrowitz, Abe. “Walker-Guthrie Project to Cost Over $6 Million.” Minneapolis Star. 20 September 1968.
Barnes, Edward Larrabee and Mildred S. Friedman. “Walker Art Center” Design Quarterly, No. 9, 1971: 1-22.
Begley, Mary D. “Idea Houses at Walker Art Center.” DOCOMOMO US/MN, 2020. Web. https://www.docomomo-us-mn.org/idea-houses-at-walker-art-center.html
Begley, Mary D. “Minneapolis modernism: The Story of Walker Art Center.” DOCOMOMO US/MN, 2020. Web. https://www.docomomo-us-mn.org/walker-art-center.html
Blake, Peter. “Brick-on-brick and white-on-white: the Walker Art Center may be the best modern museum in the U.S”. Architecture plus, Volume 2, Issue 4, 1974: 38-49.
Bergdoll, Barry.. “I.M. Pei, Marcel Breuer, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and the New American Museum Design of the 1960s.”. Studies in the History of Art (Vol 73, Symposium Papers L: A Modernist Museum in Perspective: The East Building, National Gallery of Art), 2009: 106-123.
Comazzi, John and Margaret Werry. “The Walker Art Center + The Tyrone Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis: Two Views” Journal of Architectural Education (Vol. 61, No. 4, Performance/Architecture): pp. 131-135. http://www.jstor.com/stable/40480873
Dill, Emma. “Walker Art Center.” MNopedia, 30 April 2018. https://www.mnopedia.org/place/walker-art-center
Expanding the Center : Walker Art Center and Herzog & de Meuron (1st ed.). Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2005.
Fischer, Mark (producer). (26 May 2013). Minneapolis Sculpture Garden [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.mnvideovault.org/index.php?id=24340&select_index=0&popup=yes#0
Fox, Margalit. “Martin Friedman, Whose Vision Shaped Walker Art Center, Dies at 90.” New York Times. 13 May 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/arts/design/martin-friedman-whose-vision-shaped-walker-art-center-dies-at-90.html
Jacob, Bernard. “Let’s Empty the New Walker.” Northwest Architects. Volume XXXV, Number 5. (July-August 1971): 200-206.
Madison, Cathy. Walker Art Center: Art spaces. London: Scala Publishers Limited, 2005.
Nelson, Rick. “Walker Art Center’s iconic brick building, now 50 years old, is aging gracefully.” Star Tribune. 4 June 2021.
https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-iconic-walker-art-center-now-50-years-old-is-aging-gracefully/600064661/
Ruddy, Martha. (1998, November). Daniel S. Defenbacher Papers, 1939-1951. [Biography, description]. WAC RG1 S1 (94.09.DO).
https://s3.amazonaws.com/wac-imgix/cms/DSD_FA.pdf
Smith, David C. “Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is 25.” Minneapolis Park History, 30 May 2013.
https://minneapolisparkhistory.com/2013/05/30/minneapolis-sculpture-garden-is-25/
Steele, Mike. “Architect’s Plan: Walker to Be Contrast Study.” Minneapolis Tribune. 10 October 1968.
Vuchetich, Jill. “Ghost Building: Walker Galleries 1927.” Walker Reader. 28 October 2014.
https://walkerart.org/magazine/ghost-building-walker-galleries-1927
Vuchetich, Jill. “Walker History: Shall We Take It? The Walker’s Founding Question.” Walker Reader. 8 October 2014.
https://walkerart.org/magazine/public-art-center-defenbacher
Yardley, Willian. “Mildred Friedman, 85, Dies; Curator Elevated Design and Architecture.” New York Times. 9 September 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/arts/design/mildred-friedman-design-curator-dies-at-85.html
Reporter / Date:
Mary Dahlman Begley / August 2024
Summary:
The Walker Art Center is a destination for culture and art in the Twin Cities. Known for multifaceted public programming and ambitious exhibitions, the Walker is also responsible for introducing Modernism to Minneapolis. Through key individuals, architectural evolutions, and the city’s support, the Walker—a contemporary icon—occupies a central position in the architectural canon of Midwest Modernism.
Author:
Mary Dahlman Begley is an architectural designer, researcher, and writer living in Minneapolis. December, 2020.
WC: 2359
Construction Dates:
1966-1971
Architectural and Other Designer(s):
Edward Larrabee Barnes (architect), Mildred Friedman (interior design)
WALKER ART GALLERY
In 1879, thirteen years after the incorporation of Minneapolis as a city, lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker opened a gallery in his house on Hennepin Avenue. (See figure 1) With this gesture, T.B. Walker created the first art gallery west of the Mississippi and the first physical location of what would become the Walker Art Center. Walker’s taste skewed Romantic, with lush materials and intricate details in the architecture and interiors of the Walker Art Gallery. As Walker’s fortune continued to grow, he expanded his collection as well as the space; by 1915 the home gallery included 15 rooms.
In 1927 the first purpose-built building of the Walker Art Gallery opened. (Figure 2) This Moorish-style building, designed by long-standing local firm Long and Thorshov, stood on the current site of the Walker Art Center, adjacent to two of Minneapolis’ main thoroughfares: Hennepin and Lyndale Avenues. (Figure 3) The site’s marshy terrain was built up with soil removed for the road construction. The symmetrical plan was simple, the ornamentation elaborate, and the style a marker of Walker’s status as a baron of the Romantic period. Revivalist Architecture was popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States, as the young, rapidly modernizing nation looked to the past great empires for inspiration. Walker was a cosmopolitan connoisseur and the design of the building drew from a range of stylistic references: Arabesque motifs in the terracotta facade add texture and recall the western Islamic world, the dramatic pediment at entry and flourishing double stair in the interior signal a Baroque sensibility, yet the symmetry and relatively unembellished interiors speak to proto-modern design and the building’s utility as an art gallery. Walker Art Gallery operated as such until 1939, when a federal program prompted a shift in the institution’s trajectory.
Figure 1.
In 1879, art collector and lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker opened a public gallery in his house at 802 Hennepin Ave. This collection and location, the Walker Art Gallery, is the progenitor of the Walker Art Center. Interior, Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis [photoprint]. (c. 1918). Minnesota Historical Society. http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display?irn=10753847 |
Figure 2.
The first purpose-built building of the Walker Art Gallery opened in 1927. The Revivalist, Moorish style building was designed by Long and Thorshov. Walker Art Center, Lyndale at Hennepin, Minneapolis [photonegative]. (1926). Minnesota Historical Society. http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display?irn=10865654 |
WALKER ART CENTER
The Walker Art Gallery became the Walker Art Center through city strategic goals, public funds, the support of the Walker family, and the vision of Daniel S. Defenbacher. Defenbacher worked for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) establishing art centers across the country. In 1938 Minnesota Art Council (MAC) contacted Defenbacher to assist with their initiative. Archie Walker, T.B.’s son and then president of the Walker Art Gallery, supported MAC’s initiative. Defenbacher was interested; MAC raised the initial $5,000 required to leverage $35,000 of WPA salaries and support, and the Walker Art Gallery offered up their large facility and collection for the establishment of the center. Walker Art Center opened on January 4, 1940, with Defenbacher as its first Director.
Defenbacher articulated a vision for the Walker Art Center (WAC) that would bring art and people together. WAC’s educational focus was supported by the WPA, and in the early years an art school operated in the building. WPA funding proved unreliable, and as WWII dragged on the institution suffered from losing personnel to the War effort. WPA support of the Center was terminated in 1943 and the Walker Foundation assumed financial responsibility of WAC. This led to the purchase of the museum’s first piece of modern art in 1942: Franz Marc’s Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses) (1911). These early years set the tone for WAC as an institution dedicated to the cutting edge of art, design, and public-private partnerships.
EVERYDAY ART
In the 1940s, the Walker introduced ideas of Modernist design to Minneapolis through a new gallery, the Everyday Art Gallery. The Everyday Art Gallery drew inspiration from early Modernist thinkers, such as the Werkbund, formed in 1909 Germany to promote good design. This association of artists, architects, and designers contributed to material and design exploration that created an aesthetic language for Modernist design. Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe furthered this aesthetic language, and through their influence Philip Johnson in the 1930s curated a program at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that symbolically welcomed Modernism to the US. In 1940, Eliot Noyes of MoMA held the first of many open competitions to stimulate new ideas in furniture, fabric, and lamps. The momentum of this movement of Modernist design at the scale of the home inspired Defenbacher to formulate a proposal in 1940 for a “consumer’s art gallery.”
In 1944, Defenbacher appointed Hilde Reiss as the curator of the new Everyday Art Gallery. Reiss and Defenbacher shared a commitment to “useful art” - a principle of industrial design in the Modern era that posits design as the way an object is elevated from a product to an art form. Reiss was introduced to Modern design when she studied architecture under Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany from 1930 to 1932. Reiss moved to New York and taught at the Design Laboratory, a project of the WPA, where she met William Friedman, who would become her husband and colleague at the Walker Art Center. The couple were both hired by Defenbacher in 1944 (Friedman as Assistant Director in charge of Exhibitions). Reiss’ training at the Bauhaus and work experience in both public and private sectors informed her design ethic, which she described as “straightforward and practical.” This sensibility translated well to Minneapolis, where the Everyday Art Gallery - through the display of consumer products - brought High Modernism to the level of the everyday.
In the 1940s, the Walker introduced ideas of Modernist design to Minneapolis through a new gallery, the Everyday Art Gallery. The Everyday Art Gallery drew inspiration from early Modernist thinkers, such as the Werkbund, formed in 1909 Germany to promote good design. This association of artists, architects, and designers contributed to material and design exploration that created an aesthetic language for Modernist design. Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe furthered this aesthetic language, and through their influence Philip Johnson in the 1930s curated a program at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that symbolically welcomed Modernism to the US. In 1940, Eliot Noyes of MoMA held the first of many open competitions to stimulate new ideas in furniture, fabric, and lamps. The momentum of this movement of Modernist design at the scale of the home inspired Defenbacher to formulate a proposal in 1940 for a “consumer’s art gallery.”
In 1944, Defenbacher appointed Hilde Reiss as the curator of the new Everyday Art Gallery. Reiss and Defenbacher shared a commitment to “useful art” - a principle of industrial design in the Modern era that posits design as the way an object is elevated from a product to an art form. Reiss was introduced to Modern design when she studied architecture under Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany from 1930 to 1932. Reiss moved to New York and taught at the Design Laboratory, a project of the WPA, where she met William Friedman, who would become her husband and colleague at the Walker Art Center. The couple were both hired by Defenbacher in 1944 (Friedman as Assistant Director in charge of Exhibitions). Reiss’ training at the Bauhaus and work experience in both public and private sectors informed her design ethic, which she described as “straightforward and practical.” This sensibility translated well to Minneapolis, where the Everyday Art Gallery - through the display of consumer products - brought High Modernism to the level of the everyday.
Figure 3.
This aerial photo from 1938 shows the 1927 building of the Walker Art Center and, to the north, the park board maintained Kenwood Gardens. [Aerial photograph] [cropped] (1938). Minnesota Historical Aerial Photographs Online. http://geo.lib.umn.edu/minneapolis/1938/07-B-N.jpg |
Figure 4.
The 1944 facade update was designed by Magney, Tusslar, and Setter. The broad, planar facade opened to the largely unrenovated interior for a Moderne style that served the Walker Art Center until the late 1960s. Jacobson, R. (1963). Institute, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis [photoprint]. Minnesota Historical Society. http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display?irn=11362637 |
MODERN MAKEOVER
As the Walker Art Center’s agenda for art and design grew into the Modern period, it followed that the architecture required similar updating. In 1944 - the same year that WAC displayed an exhibition about Le Corbusier - the original, 1927 facade was replaced. (Figure 4) The ornamental features of the Long & Thorshov facade were cracked and faded. Local firm Magney, Tussllar, and Setter were hired for a “face-lifting operation” - the traditional French windows from the 1927 design remained, as the terracotta facade was removed and replaced with understated Mankato stone and Coldspring granite. The new look was streamlined, planar, and designed in the Moderne style. Moderne, an early iteration of Modernism, is typically indicated by eclectic coexistence of traditional and Modern architectural styles. WAC’s traditional interior was left largely untouched, save for new design features in the Everyday Art Gallery. The billboard front of the new building faced busy Hennepin Avenue and signalled the Center’s projection of Modern style into Minneapolis.
Defenbacher and his successor as director, H. Harvard Arnason (1951-1961) continued WAC’s transition into the Modern. Defenbacher commissioned a series of case study houses, built full scale on the Walker grounds to display Modern design concepts. Arnason lived in Idea House II (opened 1947), designed by Hilde Reiss, as he expanded WAC’s collection of Modern and contemporary art. In the 1950s, as the post-War consumer era began, Modern design spread across the country. Martin and Mildred “Mickey” Friedman were steeped in the design tradition of mid-century California, where the Eames led the charge of tying together art, design, and commercial objects in a visual style that would prove enduringly influential. This strain of the Modernist movement - design that is accessible and useful - can be linked to the Everyday Art Gallery. As such, the Friedmans were a natural fit for the Walker when Martin became director in 1961.
By the 1960s, WAC’s northwest corner had sunk nearly 13” into the marshy ground of Lowry Hill. The board of directors hired Edward Larrabee Barnes for a remodel in 1966. Upon inspection of the sinking foundation, Barnes and the board determined that a new building was in order. This building, designed by Barnes and opened in 1971, is a marvel of Late Modernism and the backdrop to the Walker’s successful transition to its contemporary success.
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Figure 5. The Edward Larrabee Barnes designed building for the Walker Art Center opened in 1971. An excellent example of Late Modernism, the building’s plum-colored brick exterior encloses a helical plan of loftlike galleries in the central tower. Walker Art Center, 1710 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis [photoprint]. (1982). Minnesota Historical Society. http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display?irn=10725445 |
LATE MODERNISM
Edward Larrabee Barnes studied architecture under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, alongside noted architect I.M. Pei. In 1966, when Barnes received the commission for his first museum design, Modernism was in its Late period. Late Modern style is characterized by exaggerated structure, repetition of forms, and rhetorical concepts that play with paradox and experience. Pei’s Everson Museum of Art at Syracuse (opened 1968) and Barnes’ design for the Walker Art Center, demonstrate these ideas well. Volumetric and boxy, these buildings had few windows and subdued material palettes. In this sense, the architecture of the 1971 WAC building emulates the minimalist objects acquired by the Walker in this period, by the likes of Donald Judd and Dan Flavin. This style favors dimensional experience - the composition of objects changes as you walk around and observe shifting spatial relationships.
The new building opened on May 15, 1971. (Figure 5) In Design Quarterly Barnes and Mildred Friedman (interior design of the building) described the design intent: “We are trying to create architecture that does not compete with art- to put the priorities in the right order.” Barnes designed with care for the flow of the building. The resulting building, six stories above ground, wraps loftlike, stepped galleries around a central core. This circulation scheme, typified by the Guggenheim Museum, allows visitors to bypass galleries in a helical plan. The office and service spaces are separate from the central circulation, privileging the visitor flow. As the visitor moves up the spaces, scale changes of the gallery volumes are made perceptible by subtle formal moves: a skylight, a small stair, and increasing height from ten feet in Gallery 1 up to 18 feet in Gallery 6. Gallery 6 contains a glass wall, showing off three terraces which culminate the sequence of expansion by blowing the roof off, using the city and sky as backdrop for the art displayed outside.
A new entrance for the Walker, on the north side, rerouted the visitors off busy Hennepin and Lyndale - now a freeway entry - to the quieter Vineland Place. This new entrance was shared between the Walker and Tyrone Guthrie Theater, designed by Ralph Rapson. (Figure 6) The Guthrie’s perforated facade is a playful counterpoint to the Walker’s plum-brick exterior. The monotone facade material wraps the Walker within itself, creating a continuous envelope. This delicate balancing act was more than just aesthetic, as the Guthrie Main Lobby and Box Office and upper level Balcony and Lobby bled into the plan of the Walker, sharing space, audience, and establishing a cultural center for the city.
Peter Blake, a prominent architectural critic, wrote in 1974 that the Walker is “quite possibly, the finest American museum for modern art in operation today.” Blake’s review of the building’s “virtuosic” architectural design highlights the building’s ability to highlight artwork displayed within. This is a true strength of Barnes’ design, and the new building gave the Walker Art Center the room it needed to grow. According to Blake, the Walker’s 1971 building contributed to “shift[ing] the center of gravity of the American art world from New York to this rather intriguing little Midwestern city.”
Figure 6.
The cover of Design Quarterly magazine depicts the shared entrance to the 1971 Walker Art Center building, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and the 1969 Guthrie Theater building, designed by Ralph Rapson. Design Quarterly was originally titled Everyday Art Quarterly, and was published by the Walker Art Center until 1996.
Barnes, E.L. & Friedman, M.S. [cover image] (1971). Walker Art Center. Design Quarterly, (no 81), pp.1-22. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047412
The cover of Design Quarterly magazine depicts the shared entrance to the 1971 Walker Art Center building, designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and the 1969 Guthrie Theater building, designed by Ralph Rapson. Design Quarterly was originally titled Everyday Art Quarterly, and was published by the Walker Art Center until 1996.
Barnes, E.L. & Friedman, M.S. [cover image] (1971). Walker Art Center. Design Quarterly, (no 81), pp.1-22. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047412
INTO THE POSTMODERN PERIOD
Barnes worked with the Walker twice more in the 1980s. In 1984, an addition to the building including a new gallery below ground level on the east side, a 70-seat lecture room, new print study room, extended book shop, and youth education facilities opened. An addition to the south provided more office, shop, and storage space. The addition of these programs recommitted the Walker Art Center to their mission, as articulated in 1976 when WAC became a public institution, to “champion the production of new art and preserve historically important cultural artifacts.” The new programs added in the 1984 addition allowed the architecture to more closely reflect the Walker’s mission.
Barnes and the Friedmans had long had their eyes on the land across Vineland Place, to the North of the Walker. In the early 20th century, this land was Armory Gardens, maintained by the Minnesota National Guard. From 1934 to the 1960s, the Minneapolis Park Board maintained the formally designed space, then known as Kenwood Gardens. During the construction of Interstate 94 over Hennepin and Lyndale, the gardens were used for equipment storage. Since the completion of construction in the 1970s, the land sat empty. In 1981 David Fischer became superintendent of Minneapolis Park Board. He too had his eyes on the former Kenwood Gardens land. Martin Friedman and David Fischer brought about the collaboration of an institution and a public agency - another public-private partnership that shaped the Walker’s history- to create a novel, adventurous, and ultimately cherished park space.
The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden was designed by Barnes, who by then was in what architectural critic and professor emeritus at University of Minnesota Tom Fisher described as his Postmodern phase. The symmetrical garden contains four rooms, defined by plants and a cross axis. (Figure 7) This design references Italian gardens and Renaissance gardens, in stark contrast to the abstract Late Modernist building. The Garden terminated in the north with a lake surrounding Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s Postmodern Pop art sculpture “Spoonbridge and Cherry,” commissioned for the Garden. This art piece has become an icon for the city of Minneapolis, neatly symbolising the collaboration between an art museum and the City of Minneapolis that created the Garden.
By the 2000s, the Walker had grown beyond its Modern era footprint. The Guthrie Theater had plans to be demolished, and the North American Life and Casualty Building site to the south was purchased by the Walker. Kathy Halbreich, then director of the Walker, oversaw the selection process for a new addition. Herzog and de Meuron, a contemporary architecture firm from Basel, were selected. In 2005 the new addition opened, a crinkly, shadowless envelope wraps an irregular volume. The pristine skin of this new addition meets the 1971 building through a glass link running parallel to Hennepin/Lyndale.
The Herzog and de Meuron addition complicates the neatness of Barne’s Late Modernist design, yet demonstrates the Walker’s commitment to continual adaptation to contemporary times, retaining its position as a cultural center in Minneapolis. It is through this adaptation that the Walker was able to relate to the Modernist movement in architecture throughout its evolution: from Moderne, to Late Modern, and out the door to a Postmodern Garden. With influences from Germany to California, strategic partnerships with public entities, and the thoughtfulness of numerous designers and curators, the Walker introduced Modernism to Minneapolis.
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Figure 7. This aerial photo from 1993 shows the 1988 Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, built to the north of the Walker Art Center and designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. The Tyrone Guthrie Theater, designed by Ralph Rapson, sits directly to the west of the Walker Art Center’s position on the corner of Vineland Place and Hennepin/Lyndale. [Aerial photograph] [cropped] (1993). Minnesota Historical Aerial Photographs Online. http://geo.lib.umn.edu/minneapolis/1903/07-B-N.jpg |
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(1948). Museum Facade, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Progressive Architecture, February 1948. Pp 48-49. https://usmodernist.org/index-pa.htm
(1949). Where to See Everyday Art. Everyday Art Quarterly, Winter 1949-1950 (No. 13), pp. 1-11. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047161
About: Mission & History. Walker Art. https://walkerart.org/about/mission-history
Barnes, Edward Larrabee and Mildred S. Friedman. (1971). Walker Art Center 1971. Design Quarterly, (No. 9), pp. 1-22. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047412
Blake, Peter. (1974). Brick-on-brick and white-on-white: the Walker Art Center may be the best modern museum in the U.S. Architecture plus volume 2 (Issue 4).
Bergdoll, Barry. (2009). I.M. Pei, Marcel Breuer, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and the New American Museum Design of the 1960s. Studies in the History of Art (Vol 73, Symposium Papers L: A Modernist Museum in Perspective: The East Building, National Gallery of Art), pp. 106-123. http://www.jstor.com/stable/42622475
Comazzi, John and Margaret Werry. (2008) The Walker Art Center + The Tyrone Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis: Two Views. Journal of Architectural Education (Vol. 61, No. 4, Performance/Architecture), pp. 131-135. http://www.jstor.com/stable/40480873
Dill, Emma. (2018, April 30). Walker Art Center. MNopedia. https://www.mnopedia.org/place/walker-art-center
Fischer, Mark (producer). (2013, May 26). Minneapolis Sculpture Garden [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.mnvideovault.org/index.php?id=24340&select_index=0&popup=yes#0.
Fox, Margalit. (2016, May 13). Martin Friedman, Whose Vision Shaped Walker Art Center, Dies at 90. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/arts/design/martin-friedman-whose-vision-shaped-walker-art-center-dies-at-90.html
Madison, Cathy. (2005). Walker Art Center: Art spaces. Scala Publishers Limited.
Ruddy, Martha. (1998, November). Daniel S. Defenbacher Papers, 1939-1951. [Biography, description]. WAC RG1 S1 (94.09.DO). https://s3.amazonaws.com/wac-imgix/cms/DSD_FA.pdf
Smith, David C. (2013, May 30). Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is 25. Retrieved from https://minneapolisparkhistory.com/2013/05/30/minneapolis-sculpture-garden-is-25/
Vuchetich, Jill. (2014, October 28). Ghost Building: Walker Galleries 1927. Walker Reader. https://walkerart.org/magazine/ghost-building-walker-galleries-1927
Vuchetich, Jill. (2014, October 8). Walker History: Shall We Take It? The Walker’s Founding Question. Walker Reader. https://walkerart.org/magazine/public-art-center-defenbacher
Yardley, Willian. (2014, September 9). Mildred Friedman, 85, Dies; Curator Elevated Design and Architecture. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/arts/design/mildred-friedman-design-curator-dies-at-85.html
(1948). Museum Facade, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Progressive Architecture, February 1948. Pp 48-49. https://usmodernist.org/index-pa.htm
(1949). Where to See Everyday Art. Everyday Art Quarterly, Winter 1949-1950 (No. 13), pp. 1-11. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047161
About: Mission & History. Walker Art. https://walkerart.org/about/mission-history
Barnes, Edward Larrabee and Mildred S. Friedman. (1971). Walker Art Center 1971. Design Quarterly, (No. 9), pp. 1-22. http://www.jstor.com/stable/4047412
Blake, Peter. (1974). Brick-on-brick and white-on-white: the Walker Art Center may be the best modern museum in the U.S. Architecture plus volume 2 (Issue 4).
Bergdoll, Barry. (2009). I.M. Pei, Marcel Breuer, Edward Larrabee Barnes, and the New American Museum Design of the 1960s. Studies in the History of Art (Vol 73, Symposium Papers L: A Modernist Museum in Perspective: The East Building, National Gallery of Art), pp. 106-123. http://www.jstor.com/stable/42622475
Comazzi, John and Margaret Werry. (2008) The Walker Art Center + The Tyrone Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis: Two Views. Journal of Architectural Education (Vol. 61, No. 4, Performance/Architecture), pp. 131-135. http://www.jstor.com/stable/40480873
Dill, Emma. (2018, April 30). Walker Art Center. MNopedia. https://www.mnopedia.org/place/walker-art-center
Fischer, Mark (producer). (2013, May 26). Minneapolis Sculpture Garden [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.mnvideovault.org/index.php?id=24340&select_index=0&popup=yes#0.
Fox, Margalit. (2016, May 13). Martin Friedman, Whose Vision Shaped Walker Art Center, Dies at 90. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/arts/design/martin-friedman-whose-vision-shaped-walker-art-center-dies-at-90.html
Madison, Cathy. (2005). Walker Art Center: Art spaces. Scala Publishers Limited.
Ruddy, Martha. (1998, November). Daniel S. Defenbacher Papers, 1939-1951. [Biography, description]. WAC RG1 S1 (94.09.DO). https://s3.amazonaws.com/wac-imgix/cms/DSD_FA.pdf
Smith, David C. (2013, May 30). Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is 25. Retrieved from https://minneapolisparkhistory.com/2013/05/30/minneapolis-sculpture-garden-is-25/
Vuchetich, Jill. (2014, October 28). Ghost Building: Walker Galleries 1927. Walker Reader. https://walkerart.org/magazine/ghost-building-walker-galleries-1927
Vuchetich, Jill. (2014, October 8). Walker History: Shall We Take It? The Walker’s Founding Question. Walker Reader. https://walkerart.org/magazine/public-art-center-defenbacher
Yardley, Willian. (2014, September 9). Mildred Friedman, 85, Dies; Curator Elevated Design and Architecture. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/arts/design/mildred-friedman-design-curator-dies-at-85.html
