Secrets of the City

I love Minneapolis City Hall.

Landmark center is gothic awesome.

Our Capitol. It needs some tender loving care, but it is still a magnificent state capitol building.

I also got the love for the other dome in Saint Paul, the Cathedral. Church & State, as they were meant to be — strong, separate and inspiring.

..and I’m not even Catholic!

Forgive for tooting my own horn, but the Wright-designed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was rich with history and folklore:

http://www.oldtokyo.com/imperial-hotel-1923.html

It was also a rather odd assemblage of Mayan and Japanese inspirations. Its demolition after 1968 was regrettable but did spur the preservation of other, historic and legendary Asian hotels that would later be threatened by the wrecking ball — the Hong Kong Peninsula, Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, the Manila Hotel — in the name of urban renewal.

We have a few meeting rooms where you can see the Captiol out one window and the Cathedral out another. I love having meetings in those rooms because the view can’t be beat.

i really love the MN History Center. mainly for that view of the capital though!
the st paul hotel is pretty cool.

The Minnesota Capital building is nice and all, but it doesn’t compare to the golden domed capital building to the south.

Locally, driving through southeast Minneapolis with all its Craftsman/Arts & Crafts bungalows is a real joy. Many of them, I think, were built with plans and materials mail-ordered from Sears ca. 1915-1930.

Sorry to threadjack, but if anyone wants to post an image of their favorite building, feel free! Look for the image button in the toolbar at the bottom of the rich text editor. And I see DouglasG beat me to the punch!

Central Library in downtown St. Paul. I love the big windows that overlook Rice Park and the Landmark center.

Is there a maximum size, mamu, or does the photo automatically resize?

There’s no maximum size yet. What do you guys think would be best? Perhaps 50% of the column width?

The picture I posted is probably as big as they should go. 500px. Perhaps just a little less. That is probably 75% column width.

I’d go with 75 percent.

Minneapolis Library

The Weisman. and a strong second for the Minneapolis Central Library. Also like the Wells Fargo tower.

Okay, I’m going to test this photo thing with my famous photo of my cat. I ensmallened it to 500×300

The FRB, right by the river in Minneapolis. Second place might go to the new Guthrie.

a University Ave. classic….

I like the old Masonic Temple building on Hennepin. Any building dark and sooty when the weather is grey — like this time of year — is comforting to me.

New Willey House URL FYI: http://www.thewilleyhouse.com/
The one on Geocities is broken. Go here to take a virtual tour, see a massed model–all sorts of cool stuff.

which is to say the Purcell Cutts house.

The interior layout of the Purcell Cutts house is functional and surprisingly modern (with the exception of the servent’s quarters). Love that little built-in desk with the veiw of the side garden. The home also has a central vaccum system!

And those cool windows by the front door.

The Iowa state capitol is an over the top wedding cake of a building with lots of extras.

@adam: That stained-glass door would give me a smile everytime I used it, no matter how crappy the day was. Nice!

Butlers Square is probably the best renovated warehouse downtown. Very cool inside.

I would like to add, that not only is the Iowa State Capitol Building beautiful, it is also very functional. It is not one of those pretty on the outside, but a mess on the inside. It was well thought out and easily navigated. It is pleasing in both form and function.

I’m sure my vote is pretty predictable at this point:

http://tinyurl.com/5wdvec

(Wish I knew how to hyperlink text on this new site-thingy.)