Guthrie Theater
Downtown, Mill and Riverfront District
Attracting architecture buffs from across the country, this performance space opened to much fanfare in 2006. Designed by famed French architect Jean Nouvel, it’s a work of art that brings to life three theaters, 11 bars, one restaurant, and one café. Its world-class reputation has drawn actors such as Sir Ian McKellen and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who is staging a new production here in 2009. Even without tickets for a show, you can take in the magnificent Mississippi River from the fifth-floor, two-level Endless Bridge that cantilevers 178 feet across the street below. The gutsy design feature includes a stepped outdoor terrace that overlooks the city’s defunct flour mills, St. Anthony Falls, and the Stone Arch Bridge.
Tip: Buy your morning coffee at Level 5 Express, the building’s café, or afternoon cocktail at Cue, the first-floor bar, and enjoy it alfresco while watching the river from the building’s bridge.
Tip: See the costume, prop, and scene shops on one of the $10 regularly scheduled backstage tours, or call to arrange a private 90-minute architectural tour.
As Featured In...
From Food & Wine, Jun 2006
“Architect Jean Nouvel's electrifying $125 million building for the Guthrie Theater—which will be completed this summer—takes its cues from its setting on the Mississippi River, formerly dominated by flour mills and now the site of parks, loft apartments, hotels, a milling museum and a music school. A vintage Gold Medal Flour sign on an old mill nearby casts an orange-neon glow across the theater's shiny midnight-blue steel façade. Eerie yellow-glass windows add a sense of mystery....” MORE>>
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