The Playgoer: New Guthrie Defended

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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

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!

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