James S. Russell

The bladelike form that projects 178 feet from the shimmering, midnightblue bulk of the Guthrie Theater sums up everything willfully idiosyncratic yet keenly intuited about Jean Nouvel’s design. What he calls ‘the endless bridge’ extends a two-story lobby inside, offering a sublime connection between Minneapolis’s downtown and the longisolated banks of the Mississippi River. That attention- grabbing form will certainly become iconic, but the dreamlike procession Nouvel built inside almost subconsciously prepares patrons for the unique ‘reality’ of dramatic artifice. In making a presence that is urban, yet architecturally and theatrically evocative, Jean Nouvel (with Minneapolis- based firm Architectural Alliance)realizes the expansive vision of Joe Dowling, the Guthrie’s artistic director. He speaks of the $125 million building that opened in June, 2006 as «an artistic, architectural, and economic force on the banks of the Mississippi»... [+]