Minneapolis Vows to Protect Rapson Library
By Margaret Foster | From Preservation | Feb. 28, 2007
Rapson's subterranean library
Credit: Jeremy Stratton
In Minneapolis this winter, city leaders are meeting to find a way to save a modern library that its library board shuttered on Dec. 29.
A task force has been meeting every week to discuss merging the city and Hennepin County library systems, says City Councilman Gary Schiff. "One of the requirements of the merger, from the city's point of view, is that [the library] be reopened."
Modern architect Ralph Rapson designed the Southeast Library as a bank in 1964; it was converted to a library three years later.
Rapson's famed Guthrie Theater was demolished in December, the same month the Minneapolis Public Library Board decided to close the Rapson library, the Roosevelt Library, which is a National Register-listed Carnegie library, and a third branch.
As the city tries to reopen the Southeast Library, it is also trying to designate it as a local landmark, Schiff says, because the library board, which owns the building, had planned to sell the empty lot.
"That was a breathtaking assumption that made me say, 'Hold on,'" Schiff says. "Any demolition will require a permit by city council, and there is no interest on city council in demolishing a Rapson gem like the Southeast Library."
Rapson's design called for only a third of the 18,000-square-foot library to be above the ground. "It's mostly a subterranean building," says Phillip Koski, Minnesota architect and writer. "It's one of his best works. It's kind of like a temple."
The Guthrie demolition was a wake-up call for the state, Koski says. "There's a sense in the preservation community in Minnesota that mid-century modern is the next challenge for preservation, and Ralph Rapson's buildings are definitely landmarks and signify the best of Minnesota architecture from that period. He's still alive, and his influence carries a lot of weight. You see it everywhere."
At 93, Rapson is still a practicing architect in Minneapolis. Two years ago he lamented the imminent loss of his Guthrie Theater.
"I'm not one of these people that thinks that every building has to remain forever. Times change, conditions change, circumstances change—we must move on," Rapson told Minnesota Public Radio in 2005. "But so many people have told me what wonderful times they've had coming and going to the Guthrie, that I think it's a terrible loss. People have asked me, 'Does it hurt?' Yes it hurts! It's like losing a child, if you will."
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