People often don't recognize what they have in their own backyards, according to Larry Millett, author of Minnesota Modern, and that goes double for Midcentury architecture in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. According to the formerSt. Paul Pioneer Press architecture critic, it's a style that played a dominant role in defining the look of the region's cities and suburbs, but the canon of great works goes well beyond big names such as Ralph Rapson, or world-renowned projects such as Marcel Breuer's Saint John's Abbey Church.

"The modernism of Minnesota was certainly more buttoned-down than what you'd find on California or the coasts," he says, "but it's all over the houses and churches of the region, the outstanding building types of its era."

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