Mesh Architecture
Creating space(s) for meaningful connections
Dudley Riggs Theatre
This project is about accessibility to art.
Type: Theater/Hospitality | Reuse
Location: Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN
Status: Completed 2023
Scale: 16,155 SF
Team: Molly Dalsin/mesh, Noah Sundberg/Doran Special Construction, Andrew Johnson/Hennepin Theatre Trust
The crux of this project is its constellation-like connection to the other Hennepin Arts theaters and outreach programs down Hennepin Avenue and through the Twin Cities. The Dudley Riggs Theater is not simply an addition to this, but a diversification both for the business and patrons. The building is the blue collar theater of the Hennepin Arts’ acquisitions. In contrast to the ornate Orpheum, Pantages, and State theaters, Dudley Riggs Theater’s superpower is its accessibility to all types of people. It is intimate, comfortable, and relaxed - like being in your best friend’s living room with a group of friends…and a series of cocktails, conversations, and laughs of course courtesy of the resident theater company The Brave New Workshop!
With this in mind, the project removed layers of red and navy gypsum board to reveal the working history of the building itself by uncovering brick, wood joists, original plasterwork and wallpaper from it’s days as Hershfield's, and increase the volume of the small, interconnected lobbies. Taking cues from Dudley Rigg’s childhood connection to the Barnum and Bailey circus and vaudeville performance typologies the color scheme remained bold. Each lobby was painted a different color and the communicating stair was painted bold yellow to assist in navigation of the vertical lobbies. The texture of the existing conditions and the bold colored walls productively unites and simultaneously clashes with the art installations supported by Hennepin Arts creating a palimpsest unique to The Dudley Riggs Theater.
Bibliography O’doherty, Brian. 1986. Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hubbard, Rob, Franken, Al. Brave New Workshop: Promiscuous Hostility and Laughs in the Land of Loons. The History Press (October 26, 2015). 176 pages.
Kerr, Euan. 2021. “Hennepin Theatre Trust Buys Iconic Brave New Workshop.” MPR News. December 3, 2021. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/12/03/hennepin-theater-trust-buys-iconic-brave-new-workshop.
“Long-Time Circus Performer Dudley Riggs Flies without a Net.” 2019. TPT Originals. April 11, 2019. https://www.tptoriginals.org/long-time-circus-performer-dudley-riggs-flies-without-a-net/.
“Hennepin Arts.” n.d. Hennepin Arts. Accessed August 1, 2024. https://hennepinarts.org/.
Figures and Images:
Bailey, Bill. Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey - The World's Biggest Menagerie / Bill Bailey. , ca. 1944. [United States: publisher not identified] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/99400182/.
Howe, George, Geddes, Norman Bel. Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus: the greatest show on Earth., ca 1941. [United States: publisher not identified] Poster, advertising. https://hdl.huntington.org/iiif/info/p16003coll4/1915/manifest.json
Federal Theatre Project, U.S., Sponsor, and Sponsor Federal Art Project. Federal Theatre Project presents 10 acts all star vaudeville. Salem Massachusetts, 1938. [Massachusetts: F.T.P. Poster Dept] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98516896/. Minnesota Historical Society Photography
Bob Dylan Mural by Eduardo Kobra
Pop Art by Greg Gosssel