This project was the first proposal for an "annual-cycle energy system" powered entirely by the sun in the Upper Midwest.

Unbuilt Minnesota:
A Glimpse of What Might Have Been

By Robert Gerloff
(Excerpted from an original article in Architecture Minnesota, March/April 1990)

In 1973, during the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War, the Arab members of OPEC embargoed oil shipments to the United States, and overnight energy awareness exploded from the back pages of ecological newsletters to the covers of Time and Newsweek. Americans, trapped in long lines at filling stations, were suddenly "energy conscious".

Washington made it a national priority to develop alternative energy sources free from political meddling. Solar energy seemed the most promising, and universities began churning out research.

In 1975 Dennis R. Holloway, a professor at the U of Minnesota School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, designed a solar-demonstration building for the Minnesota State Fair. His Pavilion for the Arts, powered entirely by a solar system designed by mechanical-engineering professor Perry Blackshear, would have been built at the top of Machinery Hill.

[The photographs of the model (see next two pages)] show how the massive bank of solar collectors stood proudly on the roof, a bright, shiny technological vision of the future as a time when people would depend only on the sun for energy. Larger ecological concerns are expressed through symbolism: The square plan symbolizes masculine earth and the circular roof plan represents feminine heaven. By coming together, the opposites create harmony.

In 1976, with funding for the building secure and construction documents almost complete, the State Fair was shaken by scandal. A legislative sub-committee investigated accusations of price-fixing among concession booths at the State Fair, and Holloway--not wishing to be associated with unethical behavior--quit. The building was never built.