Big Climb for a cure

Kati, front, and Vickie, back, are handing out delicious incentives and informative brochures for a Leukemia fund raiser coming up April 16. They are handing out Rice Crispies bars in the luminous atrium of the Fifth Street Towers.  The challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to climb all the stairs to the top of one or both of the towers to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Stop by today or tomorrow for the story, and a Rice Crispies or Quaker bar. Or skip the treats and start getting in shape for the challenge!
If you do stop by, say the skywayway guy sent ya.

Clint holds the fort

Clint beams, and holds court at Sprint in USBank. His customers can count on Clint knowing the answers and understanding their concerns. He takes care of you and me.

We create our own limits, and are created by them

This throng of hungry office workers lines up for Chipotle every noon time. I can't imagine waiting for a third or half of my lunch break to simply get to the head of the line. But in the orderly downtime of queueing up, there is a kind of caesura, almost a musical interval of peace which gives meaning to the noise and movement before and after, sharpens the senses for bean and cheese, calms the ego of its feral intolerance of the demands of office obedience. This is chosen obedience, not imposed, and there is a chipotle sauce for its reward.

A meditation on nature and human intent

This photo contains the grace of growth and the grace of human-conceived form. Both exist in the harmony of a domestic environment, which is "uncreated" in the sense that it is not self-conscious. It is "thrown" into place with the energies of a spirit moving against the limits of its confinement, in its body, in its walls, in its day and night. The flowers purify form with color, and clarify time with shape. The dealy-bob of bent wire and scrap brass outside the window animates with the wind, a kind of dialog, which remembers the artist who made it long past mortality.

Out of the built environment for a bit

The exquisiteness of natural form. In this case, adorned with dust.

The spiritual beauty of unbuilt form

Leaves take time to grow, and their form is a response to subtle energies and systems that are unseen but as objective as light itself.

Cosmic relief from built things

I need to do something here that isn't built environment, so I am posting ficus leaves shot against a snowy window.

Seeing the unseen, working for the invisible, participating in the second world

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from timo on Vimeo.


I don't usually (ever?) post other people's videos or graphics but this is so freakin' beautiful conceptually and in rendering that it needs to be seen by everyone who has ever dreamed of seeing the invisible forces and frequencies that permeate our built environment.

...for the limits, to which our thoughts are confin'd, are small in respect of the vast extent of Nature it self; some parts of it are too large to be comprehended, and some too little to be perceived. And from thence it must follow, that not having a full sensation of the Object, we must be very lame and imperfect in our conceptions about it, and in all the proportions which we build upon it; hence, we often take the shadow of things for the substance, small appearances for good similitudes, similitudes for definitions; and even many of those, which we think, to be the most solid definitions, are rather expressions of our own misguided apprehensions then of the true nature of the things themselves.

The effects of these imperfections are manifested in different ways, according to the temper and disposition of the several minds of men, some they incline to gross ignorance and stupidity, and others to a presumptuous imposing on other mens Opinions, and a confident dogmatizing on matters, whereof there it no assurance to be given.
- Robert Hooke, from the preface to Micrographia, 1664

An artist in the skyways

Dan Raphael cuts my hair at Madison and Company in One Financial Plaza. He is a talented painter, and we have enjoyed seeing his work develop over time. I think he will be famous one day. In the meantime, if you want a good haircut and good conversation, stop by and say you heard about him on Skywayway.

Winter light, patterns

The low sun on a winter afternoon creates strong patterns on the carpet between the Government Center and the USBank building. I love black and white photography, and this is one of the main reasons: it elevates patterns into an idealized space...you see through your senses, but you are seeing into a timeless realm, into the blueprints of the rhythm that underlies all existence..

Skywayway ventures further afield

This clever handmade office supply-based graffito was found in a short skyway between a parking ramp and the Carlson School of Management on the West Bank of the U of M. Some patient student, or student patient, spent hours carefully assembling a performance poster spelling out the word "smile" in multi-hued post-it notes on the glass of the skyway, centered above 10th Ave. so it would cheer up passing motorists. You are seeing it from the inside of the skyway, which reads reversed.

If you watched the Oscars tonight, you heard about a documentary about Banksy, the mysterious graffiti artist. Perhaps his film "Exit throught the gift shop" inspired this. The spirit of the disposable prank did give me a smile on a grey winter day.

Golfing in the skywys

See the next post for an explanation of this attention-getting stunt in the City Center skyway level last week.

Skyway open putters along

Peri, from Target and Jennifer, doing PR for the Minnesota Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, discuss technique at the fifth hole of the Skyway Open miniature golf tournament on Feb. 27. This hole is a rendition of the facade of Minneapolis landmark Foshay Tower. I watched for a few minutes, and the intricate cabinetry on the game was impressive. In concept it was something of a cross between Skittles bowling and Pachinko, a Japanese game of luck. The next hole in the multi-block event was a replica of a bar littered with a weekend night's debris of bottles and glasses.

This event deserves some support. It should put the skyways on the local entertainment radar at least once a year, and the effort the hole designers put forth deserves notice. Go check out their website.

Note, update/ March 4.  I contacted the Leo Daly Architecture Office responsible for the hole design and construction.  They responded with some fascinating infomation, which I will quote in full here:

‘After the stock market crash of 1929, regulation minigolf links became too expensive for most people to afford. In spite of this, the desire to play this most popular game continued to flourish. The ingenuity of the players during this depressed period of American History spawned what became known as "Rinkiedink" golf. Undaunted by convention, enthusiastic players would use any space available to set up these unique and crazy courses.’

"It was with this spirit and the stated ‘theme’ of this year’s skyway golf classic – ‘Retro Minneapolis’ that the Leo A Daly design team conceived of our entry.  The project investigated the themes of history, games of the 1930-40’s, memory, and the haptic realm.  The work utilizes current digital fabrication technology, employing CNC routing, to create a ‘course’ within the façade of the Foshay Tower.  The parallels with the Japanese game of Pachinko are intentional. This construct also shares the quality of harmonic dispensation with the aforementioned game as the participants ball finds its way up the tower.  The tower appears carved out of the its base and invites one to discover it’s many contours during play.  Many thanks to CNC RouterWorks, JB Millwork and Pella Corporationfor providing labor, materials and financial donations for the effort!"

Free Tax help at the Government Center

An unused corner of the skyway/Public Service Level is converted to a tax preparation center for those who can't afford professional assistance and need help. Check it out. AARP is sponsoring, and they give preference to people over 60...but anyone who needs help can probably get it.  The temporary office is manned by all certified volunteers.

One Year! A unicycle! A Thousand dollars!

To celebrate a full year of blogging the skyways I am posting this iconic photo of a man who is pushing a unicycle around the skyways to video tape the experience for posterity. His name is Alan Polk, and he is a social worker who is an avid architecture fan, also. We chatted a bit about the Architecture Minnesota contest he plans to enter. If you win, you get a thousand dollars...for showing your opinion on skyways and their impact on street life downtown.

For a thousand bucks, I would push a unicycle with a clown on it around the skyways. Allen is more circumspect. Good luck, dude.

(Note -- I am thinking of entering the contest myself, and must relate that I posted this because I admire Alan's ingenuity and dedication to his task.  I am not sure what the AIA tweeter meant by pointing out this post as a warning of some kind. I think that using a repurposed unicycle is vastly preferable to a Segway or hospital gurney.  My suggestion to Alan was that a camera mounted backwards on an airline travel case and pulled behind one, then reversed in post processing, would provide a smoother DIY tracking shot.  And I can't close without mentioning the 9 minute single take tracking shot that opens "A Touch of Evil", which as far as I know has never been surpassed in the annals of movie making.)

Post Scriptum: I did enter the contest.  You can see Alan and my and 22 other entries here.

Matt and Heidi represent

They are overexposed in this photo but not over-exposed in the skyways despite their frequent appearances. Matt and Heidi will sign you up for MNPass, as they did me a couple of months ago. And boy am I a happy customer of the diamond lane. It used to be called the sane lane when it was free. Now it is called the HOV lane. Say hi to these guys. They can explain it to you.

The muse of security

I photographed her a year ago and she is still serenely keeping the peace in the Medical Arts building.

Nelson Aldrich, at your service

Nelson is tops on my list of interesting skyway people, even though he is a doorman on 9th Street. You have to give me a little slack here to include him, but he ranks right up there after 26 years in downtown. I have admired his hat for the full year of skyway photo blogging. He animates the sidewalk with courtly panache. I want to know his take on the comings and goings of the comers and goers at the Medical Arts building. Don't you? Of course you do. Here, let me get the door for you for once, Nelson!

What a skyway looks like from outside

This beauty crosses 9th right next to the Medical Arts Building and Hell's Kitchen. It's from the doo-dad school of design. I will catalog all the schools of skyway design through the ages soon. Starting from the terrazo and steam-heat era of the 1960s through the airport inspired vacuity of the 1990s up to the most recent, and possibly last, bit of build up around St. Thomas. Many styles, but all damn sturdy, glassy and sober. Just like your aunt from Maple Grove.

Fog shrouds the building mass

And reminds us that heaven might be a very vague place.