Ever since I read Three Seasons: a Subjective Consideration of the Minnesota Porch, the wonderful new booklet by Monica Sheets, I've felt uncomfortable sitting on my lovely three-season porch. According to the booklet, these kinds of porches are, like the skyway system, an architectural reflection of Minnesotan anti-cosmopolitanism.
Monica makes quite an argument and, since I've been sitting on my porch and experiencing it anew, it's hard to argue with her. I almost never have conversations from a three-season porch, and rarely used it with anything other than semi-opaque privacy.
Here's my favorite bit, a taste of the booklet's first section:
I was asked to expand upon what was for me had become a sort of one-liner joke: that the emotional distance off Minnesotans toward other people was reflected in the prevalence of three-season porches. My idea is that the three-season porch turns the interstitial public-private space into a highly ambitious and often highly private space that effectively creates a higher threshold to overcome when communication. This higher architectural threshold mirrors the higher emotional threshold one must overcome in interpersonal interactions with Minnesotans.
If you'd like more details, you are also welcome to read the excerpt just published on streets.mn! Or buy the entire booklet, which I highly recommend. It's available at the online store of East Lake Street's finest imprint, Birchwood Palace Industries.
The point is that I'm co-hosting a walking tour (!) with Monica Sheets and Andy Sturdevant (publisher at Birchwood Palace Industries) on Saturday the 18th. I hope you can make it! If' you're like me, you'll never look at porches the same way again.
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