Olsonology

Continued: So what happened?

Ralph Rapson was a smart guy. He studied at the University of Michigan, and later taught modernist architecture at New School of Bauhaus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was the head of the Architecture school at the University of Minnesota from 1954 to 1984.

He was accomplished. Locally, he guided such architectural greats as the original Guthrie Theater and the University of Minnesota's Rarig Center. Internationally, he designed several U.S. embassies.

He was passionate, engineering dwellings and workplaces until last year, when he passed away at the age of 93.

He was even somewhat prophetic in his architecture. Today, there are countless examples that follow his 1970s model of an all-in-one, pop-up community, such as Excelsior and Grand.

However, he was also a hopeless idealist.

"Concrete" Example of Perception vs. Reality

Riverside Plaza is a "concrete" example that runs stories high of how a perceived reality within one social circle often does not directly translate into what's real in another. While Rapson's cross-cultural vision was engineered to be inclusive, perhaps the process of designing that vision was not. Each social circle has its inherent cultural nuances, and even the smallest of these differences is exacerbated when the ripples of those social circles are forced to overlap.

Ultimately, Rapson's architectural aim might have been flawed from a social perspective, but I don't believe it failed.

A New Reality Outdates Perception

In college, a good friend of mine lived on the 36th floor in the McKnight Tower of Riverside Plaza. That long elevator ride up was the real-world experience of Disney's It's a Small World amusement park ride. As we zoomed past the first few floors, scents of curry would takeover. Picking up other passengers a few floors up would send the smell of steamed rice wafting into the elevator, along with a family speaking--almost signing--a different language.

As a midwestern teen, this was my first real exposure to Somali and Vietnamese cultures--being "in" their homes and hearing their languages. Rapson laid the foundation for a completely unintended, but culturally rich region in Minneapolis that is now the "West Bank." In this sense, he actually realized a project much bigger than his original vision.

So, when will "Ghetto In The Sky," be given an appropriate moniker? With the recent influx of North African residents, some are now referring to it as "Little Somalia."

I think we can do better than that.

- Emalie Wichmann, Writer