UMAA Report
9/15/2004 | | The names of the University’s Outstanding Achievement Award winners will be engraved on a landmark now under construction at the corner of Oak and Washington. The landmark and first part of the Scholars’ Walk are expected to be dedicated at homecoming in October. Image courtesy of Antoine Predock Architect. |
Two New Marks on the Landscape Will Honor Scholars and Alumni
A landmark work of art and the Scholars' Walk will soon grace the Minneapolis campus near the McNamara Alumni Center. Construction on the landmark at the southeastern corner of the Gateway Plaza got under way in July, while work on the first part of the Scholars' Walk began in early August. It is expected tto be completed in time for homecoming on Saturday, October 23.
The plaza landmark will honor the University's founding and be a place to note great alumni. Designed by McNamara Alumni Center architect Antoine Predock, the monument will extend from Washington Avenue for more than 200 feet along Oak Street toward the McNamara Alumni Center entrance. The exterior will be an oxidized steel similar in color to the copper that covers much of the alumni center. Angled sides will rise to more than 20 feet near the center of the structure. The landmark will include space for the names of alumni who have earned the University's Outstanding Achievement Award.
Approximately 2,000 tiny lights in the steel will create an artistic representation of the night sky as it appeared on February 25, 1851, the date of the University's charter. The landmark will also include a "day chamber," a viewing space with an overhanging roof. Tiny holes in the steel roof will direct sunlight onto an angled stainless steel panel below, creating an impression of constellations.
"This landmark not only finishes framing out the plaza, but the hope is this will be something that people want to go see," says Tom LaSalle, owner's representative for the Gateway Corporation, the nonprofit group overseeing construction and fund-raising. "I don't think you're going to find anything like this elsewhere."
The other part of the project, the Scholars' Walk, will run west from the McNamara Alumni Center and feature monuments to the U's Nobel Prize winners and recipients of other prestigious academic awards. The first phase will extend west from the alumni center several hundred feet to Union Street and is slated for completion in the spring of 2005. Eventually the walk will bisect the entire Minneapolis campus, covering some 2,000 feet and crossing Northrop Mall to Appleby Hall.
The UMAA, the University of Minnesota Foundation, and the Minnesota Medical Foundation own the Gateway Corporation. The corporation has already built the McNamara Alumni Center and the Gateway Plaza without using public funds and is doing the same with the new additions.
Benefit Spotlight: Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
UMAA members now save some green on visits to one of the Twin Cities' most idyllic spots. The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum offers alumni members $5 off a regular basic membership, which includes free admission to the arboretum's 1,000 acres of woods, prairies, wetlands, and formal gardens; discounts on merchandise and classes; and free advice from the U's Yard and Garden Line.
The arboretum is located in Chanhassen, about 25 miles west of the Twin Cities campus. The Arboretum's mission is to be an information resource, to undertake research and public education; to develop and evaluate plants and gardening practices for cold climates; and to inspire and delight all visitors with quality plants in well-designed and maintained displays, collections, model landscapes, and conservation areas. A research library, tea room, gift shop, and conservatory are added attractions. Special events, like the Totally Terrific Treehouses exhibit ending  | | Fall colors along the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Three-Mile Drive highlight the ever-changing landscape of the arboretum’s public gardens. UMAA members now get a discount on arboretum membership. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. |
in October, add to the arboretum's draw.
But it is the gardens, with new plants on display and old favorites placed in interesting settings and combinations, that draw both experienced gardeners looking for ideas and non-gardeners just looking to be wowed or seeking open space. Miles of trails are open for hiking in summer and cross country skiing in winter. A guided tram tour around a three-mile drive and free volunteer-guided walking tours are offered as well.
The arboretum is part of the U's Department of Horticultural Science. Over the years, researchers at the arboretum's Horticultural Research Center, have introduced numerous apples, grapes, and other fruits, as well as new varieties of hardy plants like azaleas, forsythia, and chrysanthemums.
Heritage Gallery Mounts New Exhibits
This fall, visitors passing through the reconstructed Memorial Stadium arch and into the Heritage Gallery inside the McNamara Alumni Center will be transported back to the days when the brick stadium itself stood on that spot. Several new exhibits, including an extensive history of Memorial Stadium, are being mounted in the multimedia museum. The Heritage Gallery celebrates the accomplishments of University alumni, faculty, and students and preserves pieces of U legend and lore.
The stadium exhibit utilizes photos, quotes, and memorabilia to take visitors back to the planning and building of the stadium in the early 1920s and through its demolition in the early 1990s. The exhibit also highlights the stadium's place in the life of the campus and its students. One feature of the exhibit is a pair of mannequins, each dressed in period stadium-going garb on loan from the University's Goldstein Gallery. The stadium exhibit officially opens September 13 and is expected to remain up through the academic year.
The Heritage Gallery is also installing a permanent exhibit on campus mascots and their history, a yearbook reading area with chairs designed by former architecture dean Ralph Rapson, and a place for visitors to write down their University memories.
The additions are part of a four- to five-year plan to overhaul parts of the gallery to attract new and repeat visitors, as well as strengthen the sense of the University's history and contributions to the world. "I want to overwhelm visitors with a sense of, 'Wow, what a university,'" says Steve Boyd-Smith, the gallery's curator.
The long-term plan includes brightening the gallery to make it more inviting, revamping the historical timeline that stretches along one wall of the gallery, creating a new video with lights programmed to spotlight various objects in the gallery, and a freestanding cabinet to display fascinating individual items that might not fit into broader exhibits.
"This is along the lines of a cabinet of curiosities," Boyd-Smith says. "I want undergrads who come through to go back to the dorm and say, 'Man, you have got to go see that giant hairball.' Once they're here they'll look around and pick up a lot more about the University."
The Curtis L. and Arleen M. Carlson Heritage Gallery
What: Photographs, videos, artifacts, inventions, and interactive kiosks that honor the accomplishments of University students, alumni, and faculty and preserve the history of the University.
Where: Off of Memorial Hall inside the McNamara Alumni Center, 200 Oak St. SE on the Minneapolis campus.
When: Open weekdays until 8 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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