University of Minnesota
College of Architecture and Landscape
Architecture
By: Shelly Willis, UMN Public Art Coordinator
August, 2000: College
of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) public art committee meets
for the first time.
September 12,2000: 46
artists are recommended by the Committee and the Public Art on Campus
Coordinator and reviewed by committee.
Six semi-finalists are selected
December 7, 2000: Three
finalists are selected to be interviewed: James Carpenter, Meg Webster, John
Roloff. James Carpenter declines
to be considered for project.
March 9, 2001: Meg
Webster and John Roloff are interviewed.
John Roloff is Selected for project
April 25-26, 2001: John
Roloff visits the campus for the first time and meets with CALA faculty and
staff.
June, 7, 2001: John
Roloff visits Steven Holl in New York City.
October 5, 2001 Rapson
Holl opens. John Roloff gives
public talk at the opening and exhibits design proposals.
October 23, 2001: John
RoloffÕs first design review.
Roloff presents 7 different designs for the project, many of which are
integral to the landscape.
Committee decides not to proceed ahead with the public art component
until a landscape architect is secured.
June 5-6, 2002: John
Koepke, Rebecca Krinke, and Vairajita Singh produce a 2-day workshop at CALA to
generate concepts for the landscape design and give John Roloff an opportunity
to share his ideas and conceptual approach to the project with faculty,
students and staff at CALA. Dean
Abbott also presents schematic designs for the gardens.
June 10, 2002: CALA
Public Art Committee meets and is updated on the workshop and discusses how to
proceed with the project. It is
recommended by the committee that Rebecca Krinke and John Roloff work
together..
June 14, 2002: The
Landscape Architecture Department faculty
recommends hiring Rebecca Krinke to collaborate with John Roloff to
develop the gardens at CALA.
February 2003: CALA
approves Rebecca Krinke to collaborate with Roloff.
March 20-21 2003: Krinke
and Roloff meet for two days and
begin generating the garden designs.
June 2, 2003: Krinke
and Roloff present proposal to the CALA Public Art Committee. The Committee approves the proposal and makes recommendation to
include Church street in design.
December, 2003: Project
proposal presented to the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
April 28, 2004 Ground
breaking and West garden construction begins.
Summer, 2005: East, north, and south garden construction planned.
College of Architecture and Landscape
Architecture
PUBLIC ART
PROJECT COMMITTEE:
University of
Minnesota
PUBLIC ART ON
CAMPUS COMMITTEE
REBECCA KRINKE
Rebecca
Krinke is an Assistant Professor of Landscape
Architecture at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches studios,
technology courses, and seminars on contemporary landscape architecture. Prior to joining the Minnesota faculty,
she taught studios at Harvard Design School, Rhode Island School of Design, and
the Boston Architectural Center.
Degrees in art (sculpture) and landscape architecture have provided the
framework for her research and practice which has a focus on contemplative and
commemorative space. A
contemplative space she designed for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Forest
Transformation, has just been built.
It is composed of a bench/room and a copper clad wall that catches light
and shadows, inviting visitors to pause and see the forest in a new way. The Great Island Memorial
Garden, in collaboration
with architect Randall Imai, was constructed in Massachusetts in 1999. Krinke organized and participated in a
ground breaking symposium: ÒContemporary Landscapes of ContemplationÓ which was
held at the University in October 2002.
She has given invited lectures on her work at Harvard Design School,
MIT, Rhode Island School of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, the
University of Florida, and Virginia Tech, among others. Her publications include essays on The
Lightning Field, the
Oklahoma Memorial, and articles on the design of the contemporary,
post-industrial landscape. She has
twice won Landscape Architecture magazine's "Visionary Landscapes"
competition and has served as a juror for this event.
JOHN ROLOFF
John Roloff's work
generally falls into two site-related categories: large-scale environmental
projects and large-scale photographic images installed in an architectural
context. Roloff consistently works
with themes related to ecology, geology, climactic phenomena, processes and
history of the site's region or specific locality. He is probably best known for his site-collaborative ceramic
installations in which large, hollow, refractory cement sculptures are fired at
night outdoors using propane gas.
This results in artifacts analogous to those made by naturally occurring
event. Roloff grew up on the
Oregon coast and attended the University of California at Davis, with the idea
of becoming a marine geologist, but ultimately turning his attention towards
making art. His work has been
included in exhibitions at the Whitney (1975) and the Smithsonian (1989). He was the recipient of a Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1983, a Fellowship award from the California Arts Council (1990),
and three Fellowship awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (1977),
(1980), (1986). His work has been
reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle, Artforum,
New York Times and Art
in America, among
others. Since 1974, Roloff has
done more than 85 lectures, panels, and visiting artists positions. He has taught at numerous Collages and
Universities from 1978-1988, and is currently a full-time professor at the San
Francisco Art Institute.
About the
University of Minnesota Public Art on Campus Program
The University of
Minnesota established its Public Art on Campus Program in 1988, five years
after Minnesota lawmakers declared that one percent of constructions costs for
any state-funded building go toward the acquisition of artwork. The Public Art on Campus Program is
managed by a committee of artists and professionals, architects, planners,
landscape architects and engineers, chaired by the Weisman Art Museum's
director, Lyndel King. They
collaborate in each selection process with a committee composed of people who
use the building where the artwork will be located. The public art budget was used for the design, fabrication
and installation of the CALA public art and garden project.