What the heck is Skunkhaus??
The name is a vaguely German takeoff inspired by the old Skunk House artist community that used to exist in the warehouse district of Minneapolis from 1985-1995 (neither this site, the name, me, nor anything else of mine are affiliated with the old Skunk House, I just thought it was cool) We knew a couple of folks who lived there and we went to a party there ‘back in the day’ – I guess the idea of the place made an impression on me. If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Diva’, the protaganist characters live in the coolest warehouse spaces – in my mind, very Skunkhaus….for a long time, my criteria of cool space was if you could roller skate the perimeter. Skunkhaus also embodies the concept of ‘skunkworks’ – project teams, technology initiatives, bursts of inventive creativity, “unhampered by bureaucracy” or for that matter previous convention. Not always pretty but just gettin’ stuff done. To me, the concept is the interface of Art, Technology, Design, Space – Skunkhaus. I have always harbored the idea of having a similarly themed warehouse space someday.
The Skunk House building was originally called the Foster House, built in 1882 to house Stephen E. Foster’s carriage manufacturing company. It was expanded to include a hotel operation after 1884 which persisted into the early 20th century. The building is still standing at 100 1st St. N and was refurbished and turned into upscale offices when purchased by the Federal Reserve in 1994 as part of their campus construction next door.
Here is a video that gives a little history of the place and the arts ecosystem surrounding and emerging from it.