#Works Progress Administration

The 4-H Building at the Minnesota State Fair is about to look completely different, and if you’ve been walking past it your whole life, this one hits different. 🌽🏛️ The iconic 100,000-square-foot building on the Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights was built in 1939 by the Works Progress Administration. It has housed 4-H students, hosted musical theater performances, and served thousands of scratch-cooked meals every August for nearly 90 years. And this summer is the last time it looks the way it always has. The Minnesota State Fair and Minnesota 4-H have launched a $35 million renovation campaign. Work starts after the 2026 Fair and wraps up before the 2027 Fair opens. About 60 percent of the funding is already in hand. Here is what is changing: The ground floor entrance and main hall are getting a full modern redesign. New learning zones are being added for STEM, agriculture, art, media, and culinary skills. The beloved musical theater stage is moving to a more prominent location. The cafeteria kitchen is being upgraded. New classrooms are being added to support programming outside of Fair season, including summer day camps and overnight experiences. And the third-floor dorms, where right now nearly 380 teenagers sleep in open bunk halls in August with almost no airflow and no air conditioning, are being subdivided to improve privacy, accessibility, and comfort for students of all ages and backgrounds. This is a community investment, and it reflects exactly what makes Minnesota neighborhoods and the Twin Cities real estate market special: people here actually care about their shared spaces. 🏡 If you have memories from the 4-H Building, drop them in the comments. I’d love to hear them. And if you want to donate, public contributions are open at 4hbuilding.org. Source: Pioneer Press Hot Tips around the Twin Cities? Need Help Buying or Selling 🏡? 🙋🏻‍♂️DM me or Text📲 Darin Bjerknes 612-702-5126 #MinnesotaStateFair #Minnesota4H #TwinCities #FalconHeightsMN #MinnesotaRealEstate

Art Deco detailing designed in the late 1920’s by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for the Boulder Dam project (later renamed the Hoover Dam) inspires my work for many years. I encourage all designers to visit this site, feel the soul of the past, the refined details and courage for the future that the creators imbued into this masterpiece of architecture.

We’ve had the pleasure of staying in all the U.S. national park historic lodges, but none of them compare to Oregon’s Timberline Lodge when it comes to the craftsmanship, furnishings, textiles and artwork that you’ll find throughout the lodge. Built in the 1930’s, this was a WPA (Works Progress Administration) project that employed stonecutters, carpenters, painters, wood-carvers, cabinet-makers, metal workers, leather-toolers, seamstresses, weavers, architects, artists, and landscape planners, and their remarkable work is still on display ninety years later. Like the national park lodges, Timberline in Mt. Hood National Forest is open to everyone. You don’t have to be an overnight guest to wander through the lodge, have a meal in the dining room or a drink in the bar. Fun fact: Timberline Lodge was used for the exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel in the movie The Shining. Director Stanley Kubrick filmed the lodge for aerial shots and establishing exterior views. The lodge, open year round, is located a little over an hour from Portland International Airport. #timberlinelodge #mounthood #nationalforest @timberlinelodge

Sad news from Athens as demolition began on Legion Pool this week. Opened in 1936, Legion Pool is a Works Progress Administration-era recreational facility located in the heart of the University of Georgia Campus and was once the largest swimming pool between Richmond and Miami. The pool was named to our Places in Peril List this year. . . #universityofgeorgia #athensga #historicpreservation

What 15 years of managing construction projects taught us about common mistakes 👇 🔸 Most cost overruns happen because of poor planning, not bad execution. After hundreds of projects, we’ve found that 80% of budget issues stem from incomplete preconstruction coordination. 🔸 The biggest schedule killer isn’t weather or materials - it’s late decisions. Tracking shows that delayed client/design team decisions cause more delays than any external factor. 🔸 Daily reports aren’t about documentation - they’re about communication. Projects with detailed daily reports have 50% fewer disputes than those with basic logs. 🔸 Subcontractor default isn’t random. Analysis shows it usually happens in month 3-4 of the project when payment cycles are stressed. 🔸 The real cause of quality issues: Rushed inspections. Data shows that 70% of rework comes from skipping or rushing milestone inspections. 🔸 Change order delays compound quickly. Every week of delay in processing change orders typically adds 2 weeks to the schedule due to trade stacking. 🔸 Most coordination issues happen at interfaces between trades. 65% of all RFIs come from gaps between scopes, not within individual trade scopes. 🔸 Meeting overload kills productivity. Projects with focused twice-weekly meetings outperform those with daily unfocused meetings. ✅ If these common issues sound familiar, check out our construction project management bundle (link in bio). Built from real project experience to help you avoid these exact problems.

This #WomensHistoryMonth, discover the legacy of Berenice Abbott, who was a pioneer of architectural photography. As part of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, Abbott spent 1935-1938 photographing New York City as it went through a dramatic architectural transformation. Over 2,000 of her "Changing New York" photographs are held in @nyplresearch's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs and can be viewed online via #NYPLDigitalCollections.

🧭 Do you know about this hidden rotunda in downtown Manhattan? 🌟 Step inside history at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in lower Manhattan! ⚓ Designed by Cass Gilbert in the grand Beaux Arts style, this iconic building was constructed between 1902-1907 as the epicenter for duty collection in the bustling Port of New York. 💸 Once the most expensive public building in NYC (second only to the infamous Tweed Courthouse), the Custom House has a storied past. 🌐 Did you know this was the 6th and final dedicated Custom House in New York before operations moved to the original World Trade Center? 🏙️ After 9/11, Customs Service employees relocated across Manhattan, Queens, and even New Jersey. 🏛️ Today, the Custom House is home to a branch of the @smithsoniannmai, the US Bankruptcy Court, and the National Archives. 🧱 But the true gem? The breathtaking 3-story central rotunda, clad in marble with a self-supporting Guastavino tile arch ceiling—a masterpiece by Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino. 🎨 The murals you see were added in 1937 as part of a Works Progress Administration project, celebrating New York’s rich maritime history and the explorers of the New World. #beauxarts #gildedage #cassgilbert #smithsonian #guastavino

On this #LaborDay weekend I wanted to shout out ALL of the incredible hard-working people in this country, including those who were apart of the Works Progress Administration. Established in 1935, the WPA put some 8.5 million people to work during its eight-year existence. Those individuals worked tirelessly, not only to build roads and bridges, but to improve the sanitation in rural America! Check out this incredible outhouse that was built by the WPA 🚽

Get a behind-the-scenes look at the sssensational renovation of the Reptile House! 👷🐍🚧 The Toledo Zoo's Reptile House was completed in 1934 by the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the precursor to the Works Progress Administration (WPA). These repairs and updates are preserving the integrity of this historic building while creating new experiences for guests. What’s coming: 🦎 New & unique residents. 🐊 Larger crocodile exhibit & holding area for training. 🐢 Expanded exhibits with more space & better views for guests. 🥂 Dedicated event space with underwater crocodile viewing. 🔨 Infrastructure upgrades like a new roof, plumbing, electrical & air conditioning. The project’s completion is currently projected for this summer. Stay tuned for more updates! #toledozoo #toledoohio #reptilehouse #toledozooreptilehouse #reptiles

Most people think construction inefficiency is a labor problem. It’s not. It’s a responsibility problem. Liability gets pushed down the chain, information gets held back, and decisions get made in silos… which is exactly where mistakes and cost overruns happen. Enjoyed speaking at University of Miami on this. . #buildingthefuture #constructiontech #estimation #futureofconstruction #liability

The deadly streets of Echo Park, seen here in 1936 as a Pacific Electric streetcar heads north on Glendale Boulevard, passing under Sunset and continuing onward as we come to a stop in front of a sign warning that six pedestrians recently died on this spot. This clip comes from a short film called “Danger on the Streets,” produced by the Works Progress Administration at a time when pedestrian deaths across the nation were tallied at 4,500 for the year, with reports of another 72,000 injuries (people hit by cars who survived). Those totals had traffic boards across the country scrambling to implement better safety measures on their streets and to educate both motorists and pedestrians on watching out for each other. For comparison, the pedestrian death toll in 2022 was 7,508 and our population has increased by 205 million, so the rate was 1.6x higher then, per capita. — Will put up more from the film at a later time, just really geeked out over this shot since I both drive and walk this stretch of Glendale a few times a week. Music is by Henry Mancini, from the opening of “Touch of Evil” (it plays over the Universal logo).

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