From Italy to Powderhorn, the American Porch (and PorchFest) endures
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Last spring in Venice, Italy, the sounds of banjo music filled an American porch. People from all walks of life were sitting on porch steps, lounging in swinging chairs and swaying to the music.
Ross Altheimer and Maura Rockcastle of Minneapolis were there.
“I was just super emotional at that point,” Altheimer says. "Sitting and feeling the porch on a world stage, that was actually activated, that people were surrounding and hearing the banjo.”
It was the opening of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, one of the world’s biggest architecture and design fairs.
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Altheimer and Rockcastle run TEN X TEN, a Minneapolis design and landscape architecture studio. In 2024, they joined a national team of architects, designers and consultants to create the U.S. Pavilion at the Biennale.
Together they designed “Porch: An Architecture of Generosity,” which includes a massive modern porch erected around the existing U.S Pavilion building, a 1930 Palladian-style structure of red brick and white columns.
‘Architectural typology’
Rockcastle calls it an architectural typology that celebrates community and togetherness.
Porches across the country, and in Minnesota, are used as a place of exchange, a shelter on the threshold of public and private life, and as a stage, as seen with the many PorchFests that communities have organized over the last two decades, including Powderhorn PorchFest on Sept. 20.
“Maybe the most powerful thing in in our world right now is leaning into community and empowering that,” Rockcastle says.
Altheimer and Rockcastle have both been feeling unease about the polarized political climate in the U.S. They said the porch project was a salve.
“That was like almost relief in a way — that we still had this, that we could be together in this way, and we could celebrate our culture in a way that we know it to be, in the way that we love,” Altheimer says.
Rockcastle adds: “This is the power we have as people from this community, from the United States, that we can still come together around positive ideas of joy or activism, and that these types of spaces matter and can catalyze that.”
The Biennale porch, which will stay up until Nov. 23, has hosted live music, dance and crafts. It’s been a space for relaxation and socialization.
The idea of the porch
This idea of the porch has existed around the world for millennia.
“There are ties to ancient Greece, Imperial Rome, the loggia with Renaissance roots,” Rockcastle explains. “And a lot of questions: Was it out of Africa? Was it out of India? Was it out of Italy? I think every culture across the world had a form of the porch in some way.”
There is something quintessentially American about the architectural icon, too.
“There’s a spirit of progress. It is a space tied a little bit to the idea of the American dream,” Rockcastle says. “A place where you can really present your family’s identity, or your block’s identity, your neighborhood's identity.”
That long history comes full circle each summer and fall here in Minnesota, with festivals — “porchfests” — built around the porch itself, from the Kingfield and Uptown neighborhoods of Minneapolis to Rochester. Porchfests are typically free DIY neighborhood music festivals.
“It’s very whimsical, wholesome,” says Ash Satorius, the events manager for the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association. “It’s local bands on stages that have Christmas lights on them and just free, open to everyone. You walk through and listen from music to music, porch to porch.”
Powderhorn PorchFest
Powderhorn PorchFest closes off two blocks to feature three house porch stages where more than a dozen acts will perform this year. There are also food trucks, family events and organizations tabling for community events.
“It's like a gift the community gives to each other,” Satorius says.
The headliner this year is iLLism, a south Minneapolis hip-hop duo featuring Fancy and Envy Duncan. They also performed last year.
“A porch is, if you think about it, it can be an empty canvas,” Envy Duncan says.
“It gives you a chance to get really creative and to figure out as an artist, how to present in this type of environment which is way different than a venue,” Fancy Duncan says. “The response from community was great just to watch people stroll up and down the street and stop and be able to eat and listen to music, and there’s kids running around.”
“It felt like a neighborhood block party,” Envy Duncan says.
Rafael Gonzalez, who performs as Minneapolis rapper and producer Tufawon, headlined in 2024.
“It’s almost like the perfect setup, because the porch is so similar to a stage, right? It’s elevated, it’s sturdy,” Gonzalez says. "And there’s something so welcoming about the energy of a porch.”
Kelly Piatt is a longtime PorchFest host, where Tufawon performed and where iLLism will perform on Saturday. Piatt says she uses the space to build community year-round.
“We sit out here for meals. We have everyone over to entertain, the neighborhood comes over here,” Piatt says. “I know every dog and baby that is within a four-block radius, and I treat it like it’s my job to know them.”
And for Piatt, Powderhorn PorchFest is the pinnacle of that.
“It’s a thing that helps our neighborhood grow stronger,” Piatt says. Every single thing that I can do to help Powderhorn grow in a positive way is what I feel like I should be doing in any capacity.”
