July’s History Friday: Barbara Barker Center for Dance

By Matt Goff, Kraus-Anderson Historian/Archivist

In 1998, Kraus-Anderson built the Barbara Barker Center for Dance on the University of Minnesota’s campus. Barbara Barker was a dancer, dance historian, teacher, and head of the University of Minnesota’s dance department for over a decade. She was a driving force behind the department — creating a standalone building designed for dance, and scarcely anybody viewing the Barbara Barker Center can deny that it is a building designed for the art. It appears to be contorted, from some angles even leaping, from its foundation.

Joan Soranno, the architect responsible for this fitting design, runs a small shop (within the quite large shop of Minneapolis-based Hammel Green & Abrahamson Inc.) that specializes in cultural and religious spaces. Kraus-Anderson’s experience in the design-build approach to construction helped deliver this West Bank landmark within budget.