28 WILO RICE RESTAURANT But instead you look, unexpectedly, into the kitchen serv- ing area, elated to but different from the dicing going on around you. ‘Another paradoxical aspect of repetition is that it often leads us to want repetition to come to an end. Evolu- tion offers an example. While it involves the endless repeti- tion of mutations, some of which improve the chances of survival, we like to find purpose init, a culmination in some- thing better In architecture, that thinking leads tthe notion of ideal form. {At Wild Rice, the main dining room plays the role of the ideal. Set apart from and seemingly evolved out of the “imperfect” gables of the service building, the symmetrical ‘gabled form of the dining wing appears at first more “per= fect" and complete. And yet, after setting us up to believe this, Salmela undercuts it. The dining wing, for instance, shares a white-walled light well with the service wing, un- derscoring the idea that, however “ideal” and autonomous the dining wing may be formally, it remains visually con- rected to and functionally dependent upon the kitchen, ‘The lasson here is that the paraciox of similarity cuts booth ways. Not oniy does the repetition of similar things emphasize the differance among them, but so too do the differences among things evolve out of the repetition of similar things. Such has been the case with wild rice, a orain that as evolved into a seemingly infinite number of variet- ies, all from the same type of grass. And such is the case with Wild Rice, one of the hiahest-ratea restaurants in the Upper Midwest, whose similarities and ciferences serve us a visual feast, ‘BELOW: A COVERED CANOPY EXTENDS FROM THE ENTRANCE, PROVIDING A VIEW OF LAKE SUPERIOR BELOW. OPPOSITE: A ‘STORAGE BUILDING SHIELDS THE SERVICE COURT AND KITCHEN ENTRY FROM THE FRONT.