The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

 

Tough times ahead. They're already here.

There are certain works of art the body wholly understands before the mind kicks in with its distancing powers of disembodied detachment and analysis. In the Twin Cities, there is very little art in the public realm -- in what we now call "the commons"-- that does this. Most public art, strained through the cheesecloth of three or four bureaucracies, is earnestly mediocre, almost by necessity. Much of what wins competitions is "plop art," dutifully commissioned to meet the tithing requirement for one-percent-for-art public building projects.

I've been living in the same city for a long time. Maybe that's why I crave the unusual. I abhor cookie-cutter architecture, which is just as prevalent in urban areas as in cul-de-sac suburbia. How many three-story brick condos with railed terraces have you seen constructed in recent years?

"Log cabins are a dime a dozen,” said Richard Olson, lighting up yet another Marlboro. “We looked at some of those. They were junk. They were put together by amateurs. Some of the logs had separated; you could see right through them. All these trees here, tip some of them on the side, and you’ve got a log home … logs, logs, logs.” A suggestion is put forth: Is a log home in the woods, well, redundant? “Yeah,” he agreed, clanking his spoon around in his coffee cup, “something like that.”

Peter Bruce is a slight, sandy-haired, serious man who moves and speaks quickly and with purpose. Bruce loves the skyways, how when it’s raining or too hot or too cold they convey people between offices and restaurants and stores. While most people have never heard of him, anyone who’s connected with the skyways—whether in retail or in planning or policing them—knows Peter Bruce and listens when he talks.

It’s early June, and the house going up near Cedar Lake is still weeks from being completed. Already, however, its roof needs replacing. The new roof has just been dropped off at the construction site: It consists of metal-encased foam panels bundled into large, rectangular plastic-bound packages—kind of like a giant, shrink-wrapped twenty-four-pack of Kleenex from Costco. The old roof is not cracked or leaky or flimsy; rather, it’s what you might call dishonest.

Imagine: It’s springtime, there’s a sense of optimism in the air. Best Buy is about to open its new corporate headquarters in Richfield. Everyone’s talking about it. Some say it will usher the Twin Cities into a new era; others argue about whether or not that’s a good thing. Wanting to include the community in the historic event, Best Buy paints one of the thousands of steel construction beams white and leaves it on the sidewalk for several days.

The first 30 feet of Fairway Drive run between six-foot hedges before halting at an iron gate. Visitors who activate the callbox are asked to identify themselves and the residence to which they are traveling. If the visitor has been invited by someone behind the gate, the iron bars swing open with a soft, slow hum revealing an empty landscape of lush, green, uninterrupted curves intersected twice by winding asphalt golf-cart paths. Welcome to the Tamarisk Country Club, Rancho Mirage, California.