This article was originally published in The Denver Post on February 22, 2001.
The Denver Art Museum’s $62.5 addition will be a
tradition-defying, high-tech building that consists of opposing
and overlapping angles and planes jutting forcefully upward,
according to a model unveiled at a news conference Wednesday
afternoon.
The rooms inside the building, from the galleries to an
auditorium, are reflected in the exterior of the
146,000-square-foot structure, which will look like anything but a
usual rectangular building.
“It is constructed from walls,” Berlin architect Daniel
Libeskind said, “which turn into floors, which become roofs. It’s
a seamless space of continuity, which really flowers in a kind of
tectonic arrangement that offers what I think are really
unprecedented spaces.”
The structure, which will be across 13th
Avenue to the south of the museum’s existing 1971 building, will
be funded by a $62.5 million bond issue that was approved in
November 1999 by Denver voters. Construction is expected to begin
in 2003 and be completed two years later.
Libeskind will present the model to the public during an open
forum from 5:30 to 7 p.m. today in Schlessman Hall on the first
floor of the museum. Admission is on a first-come, first-seated
basis.
The forum will be broadcast on KDTV-Channel 8 on cable
television at 9 p.m. Friday, 1 p.m. Sunday, 1 p.m. March 1, 9 p.m.
March 3 and 1 p.m. March 4. Free videotapes are available by
calling the museum at 720-913-0114.
Libeskind said the addition is designed to create a
“synergistic relationship” with its two major architectural
neighbors – the existing museum building by Gio Ponti and the
Denver Central Library by Michael Graves.
“This is not a stand-alone building,” Libeskind said. “It’s a
building which really has a very strong relationship to its huge
and powerful neighbors, both the Ponti building and the library.”
The tallest point of the addition, which largely follows a
north-south axis established by Civic Center, will be 125 feet,
which is slightly shorter than the highest points of the library
and Ponti buildings.
Jennifer Moulton, director of city planning and development,
said the addition will bring a “burst of energy” to the south side
of Civic Center and will unite all existing elements around the
site.
“This burst of energy,” she said, “will be a remarkable
building, tying them all together and bringing the Civic Center
south to 13th Street. It will be an extraordinary urban design
expression as well as architectural expression.”
The addition,
Libeskind said, will be constructed of a “meeting and flowing” of
gray granite, a traditional material used in nearbly buildings,
such as the state Capitol, and titanium in a
still-to-be-determined color and look.
He sought to distance the structure from Frank Gehry’s
Guggenheim branch museum in Bilbao, Spain, which has received
international acclaim for the many ways in which it sharply breaks
from architectural convention.
“Of course,” Libeskind said, “what is similar about them is
that they are both museums of the 21st century. They are aspiring
not to be just a museum of the 19th century.
“They are sort of a new generation of museums.”
