French Architect Opens His First Building in US

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (Agence France-Presse)—The grand opening of French superstar architect Jean Nouvel's first American project—the Guthrie Theater—attracted thousands of people to Minneapolis on June 25 as critics predicted the striking building would be recognized as a world landmark.

High-powered actors and benefactors fêted Nouvel at the $125 million theater on the Missisippi riverfront on June 24 at a black-tie dinner and inaugural performance.

Festivities on June 25 were expected to draw over 15,000 people for a building that sponsors hope will transform Minneapolis into an internationally renown architectural city. The new look should also cement the Guthrie, already the nation's largest regional theater with 30,000 subscribers and a $20 million annual budget, in its flagship role.

June 24 was reserved for American and international celebrities and high-rollers, including conductor Osmo Vanska and his Minnesota Orchestra, Australian-born theater doyenne Zoe Caldwell, television star Courtney Vance and his Hollywood actress-wife Angela Bassett, and Tony-winning Broadway star Audra McDonald.

A cutting-edge architect who does not fit easy labels, Nouvel created the iconic 1987 Institute of the Arab World and the just-opened Musée du Quai Branly, both in Paris.

But Nouvel, 60, dismisses what he calls post-modern limitations of a signature design style.

"I don't believe that you have a style as an architect that says you put this form here or there," said Nouvel as he led a tour of his new theater. "I have an attitude. In this case it's about perception, fluidity, history and context, about making a building that is in conversation with things around it, that has a respect for history, and has to move things forward."

The new Guthrie does all of that and then some.

The 10-story, 285,000-square-foot complex houses three auditoriums, restaurants, bars and other amenities. Many of its public spaces will be accessible to people who have not bought tickets to shows.

The theater is not just a building, but also a performance itself. It may become as famous as the Sydney Opera House or even the Eiffel Tower because of its main defining features: a two-story, cantilevered "endless bridge" that juts toward the Mississippi and offers views of the river, nearby waterfalls and old grain mills that once made Minneapolis the flour capital of the world.

The Chicago Tribune, which called Nouvel "a four-star impresario of space and light," wrote: "Nouvel has come up with another stunner—one of the finest marriages of building and site since Gehry's Guggenheim Museum revitalized the waterfront of the old Spanish shipbuilding city of Bilbao."

The Nouvel Guthrie is the latest architectural extension of the Minneapolis skyline. A new Cesar Pelli library opened this summer, as did an addition to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Last year, Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron unveiled a $85 million addition to the Walker Art Center.

But the Guthrie may propel Minneapolis into the realm of cities known for architectural greatness.

Already expectations are high for the city.

"When you consider what we got for $125 million, it is a bargain," beamed Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling. "What Jean Nouvel has delivered is pure genius."