We finally visited the new (okay five-year-old) Guthrie Theater last weekend during a visit to the Twin Cities. What an astonishing place. Designed by Frenchman Jean Nouvel’s (2008 winner of the Pritzker Prize) its odd-looking exterior is a rounded cobalt highrise (echoing the nearby historic flour mills downtown) with a protruding platform that sticks out towards the Mississippi River like a bridge lopped off in mid stride. As suggested, we took the very narrow steep elevator that reminded me of an elevator in the London Tube system to the fifth floor and walked out on the platform which we had all to ourselves on a quiet Saturday morning in late October. Astonishing views of the River, St. Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge, bright sunshine bouncing off the blue glass, and I felt like an ant whose antenna had been ripped off. Dizzy. Disoriented. Dazzled.
Inside, the strange interior – soaring spaces with cut out windows offer very precise views of the river and city and a lovely green landscaped park dotted with fiery red-leafed trees – also had me feeling woozy. We rode the elevator up to the ninth floor for another dazzling view, this time through huge panes of yellow-green tinted windows. Interesting how the glass totally changed the view we’d seen several floors below. We also walked around the curving space lining one of the theaters and through the sleek darkened bars on the fifth floor.
Building tours are available the first Saturday of the month. Next time, we’ll go to a performance there at one of the complex’s three stages (the “thrust stage” and Shakespeare seems good idea.)
for photos and more info: see http://www.guthrietheater.org/about_guthrie/our_spaces
TakeBetsywithyou 