It also will house modern seminar and meeting spaces; multimedia facilities; a café; and six student study lounges. And Northrop will again, more than ever, be a central campus and community gathering place—the “hearth of the University”—for major events, from convocations to lectures by illustrious speakers. The building also will be home to three University-wide academic programs: the University Honors Program, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the College of Design’s Travelers Innovation Lab. These programs will be springboards for the kind of teaching and learning collaborations that are so important in the modern university—engaging people from many disciplines across the University and from communities far and wide. Northrop’s walls may be constructed of steel and stone, but its cultural and intellectual spaces will be open, porous, and dynamic. As I look forward to the grand reopening, my excitement is not just “provostial” but deeply personal. I know what Northrop has meant to me and to many others, especially alumni. I hope others will have what I was privileged to have. I hope new generations of Minnesota youngsters will be bused to campus for concerts and lectures. I hope our families will come to connect with the arts and with one another. Northrop is a splendid landmark, a monumental building, but it is also a special place of learning, memory, and celebration. Northrop is an icon of the University of Minnesota—and it belongs to all of us. n Karen Hanson (B.A. ’70) graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in philosophy and mathematics.
The Lindahl Founders Room on the second floor is one of the new spaces that will serve multiple academic, cultural, and civic purposes. Performers will have a spacious rehearsal room adjacent to the stage that features floor-toceiling windows.
Original theater boundary
Then & Now Drawings of the original Northrop, left, and the new Northrop, above, illustrate the reimagined use of space that guided the revitalization. The chart at right contrasts the features of old and new.
2 0 S p r i n g 2 0 1 4 M I N N E S O TA