Similarities, contrasts and primaries, in search of the Harmonies

A group of people spin a wheel of fortune and try for a hole in one at a small street fair.  How can we have a street fair in the skyways?  Or are the bustling arcade moments on the skyway level a form of street fair?  Naw.

Across the street workmen are putting up tents for a summer music festival.

All of this activity buzzing around the impeturbable Play-Skool architecture of our own Orchestra Hall.
( I like the unnaturalness of primary colors.)

Cafe table, light and stone

There is a tiny sort of stone porch outside the 3rd Avenue entrance to Capella Towers, on which several of these sidewalk tables sit, mostly unused during the day. They look inviting, but don't give a sense of the fabric of human activity in a city...it is more as though they were stored here against some future time when people would suddenly relax, and find some shared frivolity on the stone stage, spilling crumbs and drinks in their escalating joy. In the meantime, these sit as armatures, awaiting life.

Figure Ground relationship on sidewalk outside Capella tower

He seemed about to collapse. I had just photographed the cafe tables on this plaza and took his picture by reflex, not so much intent. When I moved toward him to ask if he needed help, he straighted up and moved to the bus bench, where he looked up and down the street with some sense of privacy and dignity intact. I didn't want to disrupt that sense any further. But I thought about it for hours afterwards.
Being in a visual mode to capture images divorces you, however slightly, form the moral continuum of perception, response, and action. This experience made me question what dimension of the city experience I was missing completely by walking through the skyways as a visual predator, and not so much a citizen, a man, a companion to those around me. I know there is a strong message about this man, his circumstances, and the dynamics of the city excluded by the skyways logistics. But that message only exists in this image for now. I will work on giving it some context as I continue this project.

Progressions and reflections, soft and hard

Study of lights and planes in the Capella Tower

Figure Ground relationship in Capella Tower

Another in my series of small figures swallowed up by the enveloping built environment.

Still Life with Bicycle

My sensibility was formed during the heyday of minimalism, when Modernism was unquestioned. I have an ironic and sentimental attachment to the spare beauty of geometries barely touched by objects and grounds -- tableaux with suppressed texture and stark contrast, in which light and the essentials of form move into the foreground and declare themselves simply.

What drives wives crazy -- not in a good way

See the guy? See the ladder? See the person holding the ladder? My point.
I don't want to pick on this guy, because I like to take pictures of people doing work around the skyway. It's just part of my interest. But I am getting to the age when ladders and longevity don't mix very well any more, and reviewing this stretch made me wince. Maybe an argument for Metro Transit to send out two-man crews for jobs that are more than 6' off the ground.

Melty curtainwall

Ah, it's not that hot downtown. But the long lens helps make this glass curtainwall on the Ameriprise tower look like wilting goo.

Still Life with Skyway

The only kinked skyway zigs between the Hennepin Gov. Center and the US Bank building. Original specs for skyways required straight runs and no ramps or steps within the skyways. Like most ideals, age and necessity have compromised the specs purity without dimming the luster of their intent.

Optical illusion

It is a trick of distance and perspective that these men seem to be walking on air in front of the Thrivent glass curtain wall, and have opened a window pane to walk inside...or is it?

Don't take no for a photo

I thought I was being sly getting this unposed photo in Allie's in the Dain Tower, but

Scott asked me what I was taking pictures for.  I told him about the blog while

Grabbing this photo of a banana cloud floating over the yogurt fields.

Allies, hot breakfast sandwiches $2.99. Try the #2, croissant with American cheese ham and egg. Delicious.

Billy Chopper sings the Skyways in Minnesota

Ben and Tana are going to perform at the Government Center Summer on the Plaza tomorrow. I told them of Diana's interest and called her. She made the arrangements and who knows, maybe they will get more offers. Buenas suertes en sus viajes, amigos.

Grand manners

John the doorman at Grand Hotel on 2nd Ave flashes a welcoming smile. How could you tell he is a doorman? Is it the hat, the vest, or the flair on his vest? Or maybe the whistle. Or that he is holding the door, which no one does anymore?

Troubadors on the skyway

The Government Center-to-USBank skyway hosted an impromptu concert today. I stopped to read their poster. Very Motorcycle Diaries. I can't read Spanish as I used to, so I am including a link to their blog.
One of their entries does include a record of their first encounter with a skyway.

The glass sky

Dale Chihuly's glassware in the Capella University Towers is worth a lunch trip to see. This piece is on the 3rd Ave. side, at the entrance to the Baker building side.

Sanctuary with guard

A silent sanctuary guarded by the ATM machine in Ameriprise.

Composition with cross and zig-zags

A gothic view of Campbell-Mithun over the shoulder of the Minneapolis Club.

Variations on a relief

The variations on this heraldic shield shape are subtle. It has been turned into a series of tulip bulbs by the rain and soot of the city, no two alike.

Composition with cones

Portal to the subterranean urban world.

Latest Campbell Mithun merger

The latest Campbell Mithun merger is with the sky, seen here over the shoulder of the venerable Minneapolis Club.

Skyway cubism

The intersecting geometries and fractured planes seen from the Baker Building skyway promenade, looking into the couryard.

The play of shape and texture in HVAC gear

Look one way in the Baker building concourse and you see elegant photos of historic Minneapolis. Glance out the window into the courtyard, and you find these textures and shapes creating their own rugged compositions.

The theater of lunch, continues

Floor to ceiling windows and close quarters in the skyway turns the space into an art museum, and all the seated figures remind me of Keinholz and Segal sculpture.

Signals from within

Waiting for bags of chalupas, burritos, tacos, tex-mex tantalizers.

8th and Marquette, looking Northeast

In the IDS south skyway, a reflection of the Foshay.