The Minneapolis campus is located near Interstates 94 and 35W and is bordered by the Minneapolis neighborhoods of Dinkytown (on the north) and the Stadium Village (on the southeast). Today's campus has buildings on both banks of the Mississippi River, but the East Bank is the main portion of the campus and covers 307 acres.

One of the oldest buildings on campus is Pillsbury Hall, designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and built using varieties of sandstone available in Minnesota. It has a unique color that is hard to capture in a photograph. In more recent times, Frank Gehry designed the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum. It is a typical example of his work with curving metallic structures. A newer building is the addition to the Architecture building designed by Steven Holl and completed in 2002. It won an American Institute of Architects award for its innovative design. The Architecture building was then re-named Rapson Hall after the local modernist architect and School of Architecture's former Dean Ralph Rapson.