A bit further south, cozy coffee shops and easygoing eateries abound in the neighborhood bordered to the west by Hennepin Avenue South and, to the east, by the side-by-side Minneapolis College of Art and Design and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Here, gathering spots like the Sunny Side Up Café on South Lyndale Avenue offer a relaxed perch for people-watching. Across the street, Soo Visual Arts Center, in a storefront space, hosts exhibitions of emerging artists’ works—which are usually for sale—and a shop stocked with affordable, original pieces and multiples. (Look for artist Noah Harmon’s goofy-clever, ink-on-paper drawings.) Next door, fans of Japanese anime-inspired toys and character figurines should check out ROBOTlove, a shop that also sells artworks created by some of the same artists who design those colorful collectibles. Among them: prints of computer-based drawings by Kozyndan, the moniker of a dynamic husband-and-wife, Japanese-and-American artist duo.

A few blocks down South Lyndale, Intermedia Arts, another independent venue, presents exhibitions, performances and other events; a recent group show focused on graffiti art by female artists including the legendary Lady Pink. In fact, the Intermedia Arts building is covered in an ever-changing display of graffiti murals. Several blocks to the northeast, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts houses excellent Asian art collections, among others—its Ming dynasty reception hall and other period rooms are must-sees—and boasts a new wing designed by architect Michael Graves (here working at a muted pitch). A short drive to the south, Weinstein Gallery, a top-class commercial venue, shows photographs by Mary Ellen Mark, Lynn Davis and Robert Polidori, paintings and sculpture by Nicolas Africano, and notable works by other blue-chip artists.

Back uptown, architecture buffs should take in the Frank Gehry–designed shiny, wildly shaped Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus, which opened in 1993. Its holdings include American modernist gems like Charles Biederman’s abstract painting “Untitled, New York” (1935) and Georgia O’Keeffe’s sumptuous “Oriental Poppies” (1927), plus ceramics and Korean furniture. Gehry will create the museum’s proposed expansion, too.

On the river’s west bank, the new Guthrie Theater, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, is a dark-blue, glowing-at-night jewel of sleek styling that blends in seamlessly with its riverfront neighbors—sturdy, monumental buildings from the city’s industrial past that have been renovated as loft residences, restaurants and, just a few steps away, as the Mill City Museum, an institution devoted to the history of the local flour-milling business and its impact on Minneapolis. On the Guthrie’s ground floor, executive chef Lenny Russo’s menu at Cue, a glistening restaurant with a dramatic, open-view kitchen befitting a theater, emphasizes locally and regionally produced ingredients.

Nearby, the new, central branch of the Minneapolis Public Library, an elegant structure with a dramatic canopy roof that juts out over its entrances on Hennepin Avenue on one side and Nicollet Mall on the other, was designed by architect Cesar Pelli. One of its most distinctive, if not exactly obvious features: an eco-friendly roof planted with sun- and drought-resistant plants.

Finally, southwest of the library, also on Hennepin, the Walker Art Center is one of the most lustrous jewels in the city’s crown of cultural and educational institutions. With a new section designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, which opened in April 2005, the Walker houses one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary art anywhere. In it, no piece merely holds a place for a particular, well-known artist; instead, such works as paintings by Japan’s postwar Gutai abstractionists, Franz Kline’s little black-and-white canvas “The Chair” (1950) or Anselm Kiefer’s mixed-media tableau, “Die Ordnung der Engel (The Hierarchy of Angels)” (1985–87), are resonant emblems of the artists whose ideas and experiments they represent. The Walker oversees the diverse selection of modern and contemporary works in the popular Minneapolis Sculpture Garden across the street; its icon is Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen’s “Spoonbridge and Cherry” (1985–88), a gigantic sculpture that meets its match in a look-alike dessert on the museum restaurant’s menu.