Minnetonka Center for the Arts
Wayzata, Minnesota
James Dayton Design, Ltd.

James Dayton embraces an industrial aesthetic with a playful collage of forms for his first cultural project

By John E. Czarnecki, Assoc. AIA

© Peter Kerze

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

Part gallery, part studio, and part gathering place for the community, the Minnetonka Center for the Arts (MCA) is not a staid museum, but it has a clear focus: the process of art. An amalgam of playful forms in Wayzata, Minnesota, a western suburb of Minneapolis, the building calls attention to its creative intent.

The MCA, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2002, is a nonprofit organization providing affordable courses in the visual arts and crafts, with an annual enrollment of more than 5,000 people ranging from children to senior citizens. For more than 30 years, the MCA was located in what had been an elementary school, and the former gymnasium was the art gallery. After initially considering a $3.9 million renovation of the school, the MCA thought wiser and hired Minneapolis architect James Dayton for a new building, 30 percent larger than the old one, at $5.8 million.

Spaces in the new MCA are clearly differentiated between public uses, studios, and administration. The public component includes a 3,000-square-foot exhibition gallery, a café, and a lecture room, all near the main entrance. The studios, comprising the bulk of the ground floor, are organized along a corridor that is intended as a street through the length of the building. Administrative offices are on the second floor.

Dayton initially proposed a courtyard scheme, but that plan was inefficient and was discarded. Instead, the architect organized the studios so that each has access to daylight and exterior courtyards. Painting and drawing as well as multimedia studios have large amounts of northern exposure, and ceramics and sculpture studios face south, with adjacent space for outdoor work. A concrete art wall in front of the building (previous page, bottom left) is intended for outdoor art installations, and the courtyard in front of the wall is lined with rows of Little Leaf lindens. Minneapolis landscape architect Tom Oslund designed the outdoor spaces.

The gallery, which opened with an exhibition that Dayton curated of Minnesota artists’ work, is topped by a square skylight that can be shaded when necessary. Dayton smartly embraced a more industrial aesthetic of materials to complete the building for $157 a square foot. On the inside, floors are poured concrete throughout the ground level, and the steel structure is exposed on the ceiling of most spaces. Cor-Ten steel siding sheaths the gallery cube, both in the corridor and outdoors. Dayton designed most of the tables in the building, as well as the reception desk, using birch veneer plywood.

Formal name of Project:
Minnetonka Center for the Arts

Location:
Wayzata, Minnesota

Gross square footage:
31,433 sq ft

Total construction cost:
$5.8 Million

Owner:
Minnetonka Center for the Arts
www.minnetonkaarts.org

Architect:
James Dayton Design, Ltd.
530 North Third Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401
T 612.338.0005
F 612.338.0141
www.jddltd.com