Hennepin Center for the Arts

Minneapolis, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Located on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, the Hennepin Center for the Arts occupies a Masonic temple completed in 1888 and designed by the architectural firm Long and Kees in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Recognized for the craftsmanship and integrity of its design, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 as one of Minneapolis's finest preserved examples of the Richardsonian Romanesque idiom applied to commercial architecture. After decades as a temple, the structure was purchased in 1978 and renovated to serve as an arts center, now housing more than seventeen performing and visual art companies across eight floors, including the Illusion Theater on the top level. Today, under the ownership of Artspace Projects, Inc., it anchors the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, a three-building complex unified by a glass-walled atrium that opened with a Grand Opening Gala in September 2011.