Uptown/Lyn Lake : Buzz

The Lakewood Cemetery Garden Mausoleum, designed by HGA Architects and Engineers, which offices in the North Loop neighborhood of downtown Minneapolis, has earned a National AIA Honor Award. Designed by Joan M. Soranno and John Cook of HGA, the 24,500-square-foot mausoleum is buried into a hillside at the historic Minneapolis cemetery, yet was designed to maximize daylight. Clad in rough-textured gray granite and white mosaic-marble, the modernist structure's materials palette continues throughout the interior.

The entrance to the two-level mausoleum opens into a foyer and reception center with white marble floor, folded mahogany walls, and large window walls and clerestory windows. The windows provide views to the oak trees and sky, nearby Lake Calhoun, and the cemetery’s iconic chapel and monuments. Daylight through the window openings also accentuates the curves and angles of the white, sculptural ceiling.

A wide stairway processes past the foyer’s large windows and limestone wall to the lower garden level. To the west, a curved Venetian-plaster wall guides mourners to the chapel where committal ceremonies are held. The chapel's nine, deeply angled vertical windows bring in daylight. Embedded in the angled juxtaposition of the chapel's curved ceiling and wall are light slots, from which soft light emanates.
 
Extending east from the stairway lobby is 180-foot-long corridor connecting alternating bays or pods of six columbaria rooms (for cremated remains) and six crypt rooms (for caskets), in addition to three family crypt rooms. LED light slots every 20 feet highlight the floating ceiling planes. To the north, the chambers are inserted into the hillside. Each has a round oculus or rectangular skylight positioned in the sculptural planes of the ceiling. To the south, the crypt rooms and columbaria project into the cemetery’s landscape. Window cutouts or glass doors bring daylight in, while providing views to the historic landscape.

The mausoleum is the second National AIA Honor Award earned by Soranno and Cook. It's the fifth National AIA Honor Award for HGA.

Source: HGA
 

 

This year, Minneapolis author Louise Erdrich was recognized with an American Book Award for her 14th novel, The Round House.

Erdrich’s novel, set on an American Indian reservation, tells of a teenage boy’s struggle in the aftermath of an attack on his mother. 

The American Book Awards “celebrates the diversity of the country’s literature,” according to an article in the Star Tribune. The awards were established in 1980 by the Before Columbus Foundation, a nonprofit organization, founded by author-poet-playwright Ishmael Reed, that promotes multicultural literature.

A ceremony for the 34 authors who received awards took place at the Miami Book Fair International last month. Erdrich is also the owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore in Minneapolis.

The awards don’t involve a cash award or individual competitive categories, the story adds. 

Source: Star Tribune 

Recently, Flavorwire published a list of "45 Great American Indie Bookstores to Support This Holiday Season."  

“No matter how bleak the news about publishing gets, independently owned bookstores are surviving, and in some cases thriving,” the story reads. 

Flavorwire looked at bookstores all over the country, including Magers and Quinn, an independent bookstore in Minneapolis’ Uptown area. 

“You can pretty much get whatever you want at the Twin Cities’ biggest indie, including new, used, rare, and just about any other kind of book you’d need to get through the city’s cold winter,” the piece states. 


Source: Flavorwire

A recent New York Times story gives a shout-out to Minneapolis dancer, Aparna Ramaswamy, who recently performed to critical acclaim in New York City, saying she "lit up Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts.

The dance review titled, “Pleasing Deities, and the Eyes, With Storytelling Steps From India,” examines performances by  four classical Indian dancers.   

Ramaswamy, who is the co-artistic director, choreographer, and principal dancer of Ragamala Dance company in Minneapolis, “exuded a brisk, eager energy in her hourlong program, 'Sannidhi (Sacred Space),'" reviewer Siobhan Burke wrote. "Joined by four superb musicians, she gorgeously embodied the swooping violin; the plunking mridangam; the wailing, warbling vocals."  


Source: New York Times 

The October print issue of Bicycling magazine pays tribute to Minneapolis’ Midtown Greenway, a 5.5-mile bike and pedestrian path, in photos and words. Alongside a photo of a solo rider journeying down the Greenway in the wee morning hours, the piece reads, “Well-loved and heavily trafficked, the Greenway is an expressway of sorts for pedestrians and cyclists.”  

The Greenway, a former railroad corridor, has a scenic trail that “bypasses streets and highways and leads to the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes to the west and the Mississippi River to the east,” it adds.   
 

Cool Hunting, which showcases interesting new developments every week in the areas of design, tech, style, travel, culture, and more, recently featured an invention that comes out of Minneapolis.

Bike Fixtation, the bicycle-repair kiosk from the Minneapolis company of the same name, topped a recent list of picks on the Cool Hunting website.

"If you've ever ended up stranded in the city with a flat tire, you'll find the new Bike Fixtation kiosks helpful. The self-service stations are open extended hours for bicyclists in the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan areas," the notice reads.
 
An international team of editors and contributors at Cool Hunting sort through all kinds of innovations to provide the weekly digest.

The mystery bookstore in Minneapolis's Uptown area, Once Upon A Crime, is the first from Minnesota to be honored with the Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America, according to MPR.

The Raven Award, which goes back 50 years, recognizes excellence in the mystery-writing world.

Despite a tough bookselling market, Once Upon A Crime has stayed on top of its niche, with plenty of personalized attention to customers and a strong collection of titles, plus numerous events that support the genre, the story states.

Larry Light, vice-president of Mystery Writers of America, who is quoted in the story, describes the bookstore as a strong booster for mystery storytelling: "They helped turn mysteries into a genre that...thrives in Minneapolis."

Advertising Age magazine has named Minneapolis-based Mono its "Agency of the Year" in the 11-to-75 employee category.

We wrote about Mono's recent growth last month. The firm produces in-store displays and other graphics for Apple. It's clients also include Macy's, Rolaids, Herman Miller, General Mills, Sesame Street, and Mrs. Meyers Clean Day.

AdAge said it's recognizing Mono "for believing that simpler is better":

"Its belief in no department heads, no hierarchy or separation between strategy and creative, design and advertising, or between traditional and digital media has led to great work for clients such as Mrs. Meyers Clean Day, EMD Serono and Blu Dot."

Read the entire AdAge article here.

Only three weeks after the opening of a new Apple Store where the Uptown Bar once stood, there are signs that the nightclub, a longtime fixture of the local music scene, may soon resurface in the vacant Lyndale Theater building, according to Finance and Commerce:

"Jeffery Herman, president of the Minneapolis-based retail real estate firm Urban Anthology, is representing the Uptown Bar. Herman confirmed the deal, but would not go into details.

"'We do have a deal,' Herman said. 'I just can't comment on the timing.'

"The former Uptown Bar & Caf�, which traced its history to the 1930s, closed in early November 2009. The old bar was razed and replaced by a new location for the Apple Store, which opened on the site at 3018 Hennepin Ave. last month.

"The deal is likely to be contingent on sorting out a key issue: the operators of a revived Uptown Bar would need to secure a new liquor license from the city of Minneapolis."

Read the full article here.

 

Storefront-In-A-Box gets a mention on the BoingBoing blog this week. The experimental retail endeavor at 2441 Lyndale Ave. in Minneapolis is offering merchants a chance to set up shop for one week, one week only, for $200. The storefront will rotate weekly most of the summer, until August when a longer-term tenant, Boneshaker Books, moves into the space. Next week, it's Nerd Party week, when "you'll have a chance to partake in everything from a 'Freaks and Geeks' marathon and a Linux Workshop, to a costume contest and Power Point karaoke."

See the entire BoingBoing discussion here.

And read what the Star Tribune's Kara McGuire wrote last month here.