Friends of the Block E Haters

The art & design blog Cool Hunting recently posted a nice little documentary on architecture in Minneapolis. It's funny, anytime anybody talks about all the good architectural calls this city has made in recent years, all I can think about is Block E. How the hell did that happen? I moved away from the city when Block E was still a parking lot and an empty theater - so don't blame me.

In his sharp new survey of Twin Cities architecture, Lost Twin Cities author Larry Millett provides this nugget review of Block E:

"A cartoon of a development that presents architecture as a kind of entertainment for the same masses who crowd into Disney World or roam the Las Vegas strip. It's easy to dislike everything about this complex...but it's much harder to dismiss the reality of what it represents. Commercial architecture of all kinds is growing ever lighter, showier, and more disposable, and Block E in its own crummy but calculated way perfectly expresses these trends."

I digress...here's the Cool Hunting video: