This article was originally published in The Denver Post on August 20, 2003.
Boosters of the Denver Art Museum’s avant-garde expansion wing hope
the glass shards and titanium design will be the Eiffel Tower of
the Rockies, becoming the instant postcard icon of the city and
signaling urban sophisticates that Denver belongs on their
itinerary next to Bilbao, New York or London.
But what if the wing is just plain ugly?
A number of average citizens and schooled architects wonder if the
jarring style represented by Daniel Libeskind’s design is more
imposition than institution, more trend than truth, more spectacle
than service to the community.
The ever-growing list of comments
jotted down in books next to the architectural model on display at
the museum reflect the art world’s ongoing debate: “Another private language, intelligible to some, incoherent to the
rest of us.”
Or, more chillingly, this one: “I think it one of
the ugliest designs I have ever seen. I’ll not donate.”
None of the design’s fans or stewards flinch at the direct attacks.
They believe everyone will want to come see it, and while they
would like the chance to walk everyone through the design and
educate them about modern architecture, in a sense they don’t much
care if a good number of people hate it. They welcome the buzz and
flash of either effusive praise or scathing critique.
“There will be people whose gut reaction is they don’t like the
building. They’ll have an ‘experience’ with the building,” said
Brit Probst, an architect with Davis Partnership in Denver, the
local firm fleshing out Libeskind’s concept.
“It will challenge
them. It will take more than one or two visits. Whether they like
it or not, the building will engage the public with art.”
Though project architects have deep and detailed reasons for
advocating Libeskind’s titanium-and-glass design, they also accept
the pop culture adage that it doesn’t matter what they say as long
as they are still talking about you.
“We’ve already succeeded if people are talking about
architecture,” said architect Maria Cole, part of the Davis
Partnership.
“All along, we’ve had negative feedback,” said museum spokeswoman
Andrea Kalivas. Other patrons, dazzled by the audacity of the
angles, have offered equally heartfelt endorsements.
“Hopefully
this will put Denver on the map as an ‘art town,”‘ wrote one
reviewer about the model.
This past weekend, 3,500 people crowded into art museum forums
about the design and expansion. Visitors not only debated with
designers, but with each other, Kalivas said.
“We’re thrilled that
conversation is taking place.”
Model on display
The $90 million project is now under excavation, using $62.5
million in bonds approved by Denver voters in 1999, and $28 million
from an ongoing fund drive. Erecting the steel alone for
Libeskind’s wildly overhanging structures will take all of 2004,
with completion scheduled for late in 2006.
The museum encourages the curious to come see the expansion model
on the fourth floor and look out the window at the construction,
since watching the steel and titanium going up may be one key to
appreciating the structure.
With the recent wave of art museum wings taking shape from Bilbao
to Denver to Fort Worth, Texas, some in the architecture community
want the design debate to move beyond putting cities “on the map”
and back to creating buildings where form follows function. Lee
Becker, a partner with Hartman-Cox in Washington, D.C., a firm that
fulfills a number of institutional commissions with more reserved,
contextual designs, admires Libeskind and Frank Gehry but believes
the trendiness that makes them stars can create poor buildings.
“It can be like a Chanel purse, everybody has to have one,”
Becker said. The Corcoran museum in the nation’s capital is moving
forward on a shiny titanium addition. “They can become formulaic
and transplantable,” Becker said.
While not criticizing Libeskind’s Denver concept, Chicago
Architecture Foundation curator Ned Cramer notes an alternative
approach: Minimalist design that allows the art contained inside to
“come to the foreground.” Professionals and lay people alike are
praising the new Forth Worth modern museum by Tadao Ando because it
strikes “a very good balance between creating an artistic
statement without drowning the work within,” Cramer said.
Eclectic setting
Denver has instead chosen the approach that “because the building
contains art, it can be art,” Cramer added. “I personally applaud
people who are willing to take this on. There’s a basic assumption
of risk with a project like this. Libeskind is a thoughtful
architect, though not necessarily a gentle architect.”
An added challenge for Libeskind and crew is the eclectic setting
from which patrons will approach the jarring design. Civic Center
Plaza was a formal conception of Greek columns and symmetrical
flower beds, Ionic scrolling and arching fountains. Seemingly
dragged and chained to the site in 1971 was Geo Ponti’s main art
museum, with its gun-slit windows and fortress-gray walls. Michael
Graves pushed boundaries in 1995 with his multicolored main
library, but the toy-block design and inviting reading-room
interior charmed the city.
So Libeskind dropped into a beloved public space, next to a
much-reviled main museum, with a design the museum’s own website
calls explosive.
Denver director of urban design and planning services Tyler Gibbs
said similar old-vs.-new questions came up when he helped plan for
the new football stadium. People loved how the sturdy bricks of Coors Field nestled into LoDo, and argued the football arena should
also reflect the Rocky Mountain themes of stone and brick and
earthtone colors. The design review team understood, but leaned
toward a sleeker, one-of-a-kind approach later embodied by the
finished Invesco Field.
“We also felt there should be an opportunity to say new things
about Denver,” Gibbs said.
Postcard view?
Becker, who has other commissions in Denver and knows the site
well, is willing to wait and see how the art museum and Civic
Center all come together.
“There are places for background buildings that are part of the
fabric, and foreground buildings that call attention to
themselves,” he said.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in New York rebelled against the
square city and worked beautifully; I.M. Pei’s East Wing of the
National Gallery in Washington, D.C., rebelled against
neo-classicism and became a public treasure.
As for Denver’s seeking a new postcard view, Becker does not yet
bet against it.
“The TransAmerica tower in San Francisco, the outcry against it
was dramatic. And since then, I’ve never seen a photograph of the
city that I couldn’t immediately identify as San Francisco because
of that dynamic building.”
Reach Michael Booth at mbooth@denverpost.com or 303-820-1686.
