Content area
Full text
It's bad enough that rejecting a new art building at the University of Minnesota - as Gov. Jesse Ventura did in a building- projects bill - tells some 400 art majors that they deserve no better than a rat-infested, asbestos-polluted firetrap in which to learn.
But Ventura's art bypass does more than that. It also blows away the centerpiece of an academic and neighborhood dreamscape that's been dubbed the West Bank Arts Quarter.
Imagine the magic that would flow from putting the Guthrie, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Ordway, Orchestra Hall and several thousand talented arts students all in one ripe-for-redevelopment place.
That's not too different from what the University of Minnesota and its neighbors have cooked up for the West Bank. Already in place are Rarig Center, the theater headquarters; Ferguson Hall and Ted Mann Auditorium, the music place; the new Barbara Barker Center for Dance; and a parking ramp.
The dreamers would put a new art building and attached public- viewing gallery smack in the middle of them - then add some new low- rise housing, landscaping, transit links and campus gateways for both the university and Augsburg College, just...