New Guthrie Defended

In case you missed this yesterday, the Times architecture critic gives one of the first positive responses to the new Guthrie Theatre.

Money quote from Mr. Ouroussoff:

Rising at the edge of the Mississippi, its confident forms are rooted in a vision of a muscular industrial America, and its structural bravura will certainly please the techno-fetishists. As a thoughtful response to the American city's evolving role as a haven for cultural tourism, it also coaxes new meaning out of a haggard landscape.

Techno-fetishism and cultural tourism, eh? Is that what Sir Tyrone envisioned, four decades ago?

I am impressed, though, by the description of the three (count 'em, three) spaces. The ambition seems to have been to rival complexes like the Royal National, with three contrasting state-of-the-art theatres running different kinds of repertory. Let's hope they can fill them!