An overflow crowd at the Walker Art Center last Thursday saw four dazzling proposals for redesigning Minneapolis’ Upper Riverfront. The winning design will be announced on Feb. 10.
I’ll offer a few brief observations:
• Turenscape of Beijing offered the most tantalizing concept in the flashiest form. The presentation was a techno-marvel, and the actual content wasn’t bad either. The river, cleansed by storm water filtering systems, would be clean enough for swimming and fishing. A beach, a farmers’ market, a series of new islands and marshes, a streetcar circuit, lots of urban gardens and a considerable amount of new development were all part of the picture.
• Tom Leader Studio of Berkeley, Calif., had the most politically savvy approach. Leader has gone the extra mile to connect with local citizens, and the presentation touched a lot of buttons that will resonate with Mayor R.T. Rybak and other city leaders. More than the other plans, it stressed the importance of fitting the city into the ecosystem of the river. It’s most memorable proposal: extending Folwell Park over Interstate 94 all the way to the river’s edge.
• Ken Smith Landscape of New York delivered the most classic ideas: A boulevard running near the river’s edge, bordered by the kinds of parkways that Minneapolis is noted for. That connection to the Grand Rounds was probably the presentation’s central feature.
• Stoss Landscape Urbanism of Boston made the most surreal presentation, including even a series of searchlights “to show people where the river is.” More than the others, the Stoss proposal tried to be intellectual, but I didn’t quite get it.
Having a vision is, of course, a good thing. Whether the city and private interests can finance an Upper River redo over the next several decades, that’s the big question. See what you think. Here are the proposals.
One of the drawbacks of local democracy (and sometimes state and national, as well) is that long-term plans are extremely difficult to carry out. Changes in the public’s mood, inclination to pay the necessary tax dollars, and even popularity of types of recreational activity (“recreational fashion,” if you will), etc., all work against a coherent vision being carried out to its designed conclusion, regardless of its attractiveness and public support at the time of adoption.
Since I’m already 66, I don’t expect to live to see very much of any of the proposals carried out, regardless of which one is adopted, I live close enough to the river that I can – and do – walk to the river’s west bank on the north side of the Camden Bridge, where Shingle Creek flows into the Mississippi, with some frequency. On the west bank, at least, this area is already part of a regional park, and most of the visible industry along the river is farther south.
That said, my personal bias is in favor of TLS, despite the sometimes obnoxious music of its video. I agree that the Stoss presentation seemed surreal – not a good thing unless you’re doing an art gallery opening – and I thought the Ken Smith proposal the most limited. It’s conservative in a way that’s not very inspirational at the start of a potentially huge project. Better to dream big and have to scale back than by starting with a smallish vision that, when scaled back, more or less disappears. I wasn’t at all impressed by the Turenscape presentation, but that might be in part because the Chinese presenter(s) left something to be desired in terms of elocution. I thought their vision was, for lack of a better term, piecemeal rather than integrated. TLS struck me as having a clear idea of what they thought needed to be done. I was less impressed by the park extension than Steve, but overall, it was TLS that seemed most coherent and complete.
Any insights on why there weren’t (apparently) any local submissions? Just wondering….