Mayo Clinic Plummer Building

Photograph by Brandon Stengel, Assoc. AIA | May 1, 2022

Photo by Brandon Stengel, Assoc. AIA, of Farm Kid Studios.

LAST DETAIL

On the back page of the 2022 ENTER print annual, we asked readers a question: Can you identify this richly detailed Minnesota landmark from the photo? The answer is the Mayo Clinic Plummer Building in Rochester, Minnesota. A groundbreaking medical facility when it opened in 1928, the ornamental structure was designed by Ellerbe & Co. The entry’s 16-foot-high bronze doors—each weighing in at two tons—were designed by Charles (Carlo) Brioschi.

Farm Kid Studios’ Brandon Stengel, Assoc. AIA, recalls the fall day when he photographed the building: “For me, photographing on the autumnal equinox is always accompanied by a warm kind of sadness—the sinking of the light, the clarity of the sky, the crispness of the wind, and the smell of harvest. The symbolic bronze etchings of the Plummer Building doors, set in sun-catching stone, depict similar feelings that come with the changing of all of life’s seasons.”