If the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s (Mia’s) 100th anniversary celebration feels familiar, it’s probably not because you were around for the 1915 party. But you might remember the 1983 Centennial Celebration, when the museum sunk a time capsule into its front steps.
The plaque in the MIA’s front steps marking the location of a time capsule. The 100th anniversary of the Society of Fine Arts was in 1983, but it appears they didn’t get the capsule in the ground until the spring thaw in 1984.
The museums’s building was not yet a hundred years old then, but the Mia’s founding organization was. It’s complicated. The Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, still the legal name of the museum, began in 1883 and moved around a bit. Its first exhibitions were held in the Minneapolis Public Library. When the grand museum on Third Avenue opened in 1915 as its first permanent home, it felt like a fresh start.
In fact, it felt like a whole new organization: “The Minneapolis Institute of Arts” was plural for a reason—city fathers hoped the new building would house not just the Society’s museum, but also the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (now the Minnesota Orchestra), and other performing arts groups. But only the Society ever moved in; architectural plans to accommodate the other organizations just proved too ambitious.
In any case, there was a big party in 1983. The museum celebrated with numerous major acquisitions of art. And it put some mementos in a time capsule, buried it in the steps, and marked the spot with a brass plaque still there today. Only a couple people at the museum remember what’s inside—and they’re not telling. Even more mysteriously, a second, more informal time capsule was sunk when the 2004 Target Wing was built, and nothing marks the spot at all.