In the list of buildings in downtown Minneapolis, which need a new purpose, add this to 20 Washington AV. S.
Originally built as the seven -story headquarters of the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company in Minneapolis/Street. Paul Business Journal reports that it is currently empty and for sale. In view of the fire sales prices that are getting in the city center, it is a bitter fate for an adorable structure that was once the heart of the urban revival. It is hoped that it will be repositioned for a new use.
Here are 10 stories that you may take another look at the building:
The reflective pool of the Northwestern National Life Building is one of two pools in 20 Washington AV. S. (James Lileks)
It is a Roman temple. You could call it a tribute, an updated replenishment or a direct rip -off if you felt unguided. But the distant relative of the building is the Maison Carrée in Nimes, France, a temple that comes from approx. 7 AD traffic jams, which may be the best building that comes from the city renewal program of the Gateway distribution and huge stripes In the city center for parking spaces or for parking spaces or for parking spaces, union has modern structures.
It sewed it permanently The connection between Hennepin and Nicollet. The streets drove on the Bridge Square, a historic area scheme in which the town hall – and the Tribune newspaper – stood. The city's trading life marched west, and the intersection became old and shabby. In the 1910s, the Gateway Park filled the place, a triangular grassy area with a colonnade that opened its weapons for people, which were made up of the nearby train stations.
The Nicollet Mall put an end. The building was aligned, so that the view after the Nicollet Avenue in the direction of the river would be light and bright, with the marble columns of the portico like Alabaster trees. Nice idea, but it delivered a term without ending anything.
The Japanese American architect, Minoru Yamasaki, designed the Northwestern National Life Building in downtown Minneapolis. (Gerald R. Brimacomb)
Its crevices were a trademark of his famous architect, Minoru Yamasaki, who described his creation as “monumental and dignified but graceful”. The tops on display were new in the 1960s and would spread nationwide in the 1970s. They often applied for small town banks. Yamasaki, an influential modernist architect, would apply its exhibited columns in a more behavioral form in the building for which it will be remembered the most – the World Trade Center Towers.
The building next door, 100 Washington Square, was also designed by Yamasaki. But the 22-story office Tower has no grace or Winky Kitsch as the NWML building.