British architect, journalist, and cyclist Peter Murray has embarked on a bike ride from Portland, Oregon, to Portland Place in London. As he makes the 4,347-mile journey with a rotating group of participants, he plans to survey the state of cycling in American cities, meet up with members of the design community, and raise funds for Architecture for Humanity and U.K. relief organization Article 25.
Along the way, Murray is filing updates about his progress for Architectural Record. Stay tuned for the final U.S. leg of the journey when Murray arrives in New York City on July 2.
Everything changed when we got to Minneapolis—the cycling conditions, the landscape, the architecture, the people, and the weather. After days of grinding into headwinds across bare prairie we found ourselves on the Midtown Greenway, constructed on an obsolete rail corridor, that took us effortlessly into the heart of the city. We were met by enthusiastic local cyclists keen to show off their fine biking infrastructure (better we thought than Portland, Oregon) as well as architectural highlights by Saarinen, Gehry, Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, et al. Next to Gehry’s Weisman building I was glad to see that my old friend, keen cyclist and Minnesota University Architecture School alumnus, Bill Pedersen has designed the new Science Teaching Center. Bill is clearly held in great esteem in the city and I couldn’t help thinking that it was about time someone gave him a major cultural project to do there.
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