Aia Guide to the Twin Cities: The Essential Source on the Architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul

I first saw the AIA guides many years ago with the Chicago guide, must have been around 1995, which led me on many fruitful walking tours. This guidebook to the Twin Cities (which I now call home) is epic in scale, about 650 pages of building descriptions and photos. I'd love to see more photos in here though! The ones in the book are small but fine for identifying the buildings. There are a lot of architectural gems that I've driven past many times, but with the guide, and on foot, no longer ignore. This is probably too much of a good thing for a brief trip to the Cities, but for the resident, it's an elegant encyclopedia of local buildings.

AIA-sponsored architectural surveys vary in quality, since AIA serves as an underwriter but does not actually publish the books. If you like American architectural history, and urban architecture in particular, you're probably a collector of these books. I am. My fellow Houstonian Mr. Deason is too. And if you like GOOD architectural surveys, take Mr. Deason's advice (as I did) and buy this one. It's the best of the AIA lot to date. There are 1,500 entries from the marvelous ensemble of structures that is Minneapolis/St. Paul. Settlement of the Twin Cities gathered steam after the Civil War, so there's not much age to these buildings, but there is remarkable diversity of style and quality. Since St. Paul is the less prosperous of the two cities, it's the better preserved. This guide puts both cities on lovely display, but you should keep in mind that the guide stays within the city limits. If you're familiar with AIA guides, you'll recognize the format. There are some extra features in this book that make it better than the others. First, its coverage is comprehensive. The structures you like are going to be in here: churches, colleges and universities, houses, schools, warehouses, mills, bridges, skyscrapers, museums. They're all here. Second, the essays are concise but also informative. The author has done a nice job of telling the reader something important about each of the structures reviewed. There are 600 small black & white photographs, but despite their small size they reveal the buildings well. You get an idea of what the buildings look like from the street, which is how you're likely to observe them in person. There are interior shots of a few of the most important public structures as well. Another nice feature is the inclusion of important lost structures, which accompany the entries for the buildings that replaced them. I've not been to the Twin Cities for over 20 years, but I got the feeling that I've had a nice intimate visit from browsing this book. Any architecture book that makes me want to travel somewhere to see the buildings for myself achieves a key objective. It's very good. The product detail above says the book is about 450 pages, but it's really 650, put together in a nice flexible binding and printed on non-glossy, thick-stock paper.

First of let me say, I love these AIA guides..granted some are better than others, but for the most part they are very informative. This one on the Twin Cities is one of the best. I am not at all familiar with Minneapolis-St. Paul, so this guide was a real eye opener, I really had no idea that these two cities had so many interesting buildings. The text is highly informative and easy to read and the images are well done. If you have any interest in architecture or of the Twin Cities then I cant imagine a reason you would not love this guide. Highly recommended.