I was looking at a NY City photographer's blog the other day and noticed that there were a lot of deep shadows in the lower Manhatten areas he liked to show. Very deep. Black. It made me realize that there were few such shadow areas in Minneapolis, downtown, due to the great number of reflective building surfaces. In this photo, for example, looking slightly southwest from a skyway in the Energy Center, you see a reflection across the top of the tree shadow, which lightens the entire tree shadow, and is overlaid itself with yet another reflection -- the diamond shapes that extend to the curb. The glass entryway itself reflects the shadows and reflections of the sidewalk. I timed it so the pedestrian broke up the plane geometry, as does the tree shadow.
So what? Well, part of the implication is that Minneapolis has way too many glass walled buildings in the core west of Hennepin. It removes the mystery of bodies and vehicles emerging from, and returning to, the chthonic dark. It removes the allusion to the abyss that all cities should evoke, particularly in their densest regions.
Minneapolis shines, hovers, shimmers, glows, eludes measurement and defies the solidity of old cities. Real cities. Minneapolis is a mirage of sorts. It looks like a city, but it is a tally room and warehouse. It is an outpost, a colonial station with no roots or branches. It is a glass gameboard on the prairie, an ant farm and a space station floating in the forlorn space between planting and harvest, between snow and snow.
