For those keeping score, mark this one down as No. 5.
The University of Colorado at Boulder has announced plans for a $56 million visual-arts complex near Broadway and Euclid Avenue. It will include a significantly expanded and upgraded home for the CU Art Museum, which houses more than 5,000 objects.
The museum is the fifth art institution in the Denver metropolitan area this year to complete, start or unveil plans for a new building or an addition. The most prominent is the Denver Art Museum’s $110 million addition, which opened Oct. 7.
In addition, The Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar launched a new space in September; construction has begun on the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver’s new building; and the Clyfford Still Museum is selecting an architect for its facility.
“In communities of most any size, even larger than Denver, these kinds of cultural projects would normally take place over more like 10-20 years, but to have them all taking place within a five-year window is absolutely unprecedented and head-spinning,” said Dean Sobel, director of the Still Museum.
In the 146,000-square-foot Boulder complex, the museum will be paired with space for the university’s art and art history department. That portion of the building will include a visual resources center plus studios and classrooms with natural light and wireless and wired Internet access.
Graham Oddie, CU’s associate dean for arts and humanites, said health and safety concerns and the general aging of the Sibell-Wolle Fine Arts Building led campus planners in the late 1990s to conclude that a new structure was needed. State financing challenges put it on hold.
The complex, whose naming rights are up for bid, is being funded through student fees, state and university monies and private contributions.
“It’s going to make a huge difference,” Oddie said. “We’re going to go from having one of the worst art buildings in the country to one of the very best, if not the best, art facilities.”
The museum, whose history dates to the 1939 establishment of the Colorado Collection, has suffered from reduced visibility because it is hidden away inside the Sibell-Wolle building. The new complex will give it an independent presence.
“The architects are trying to develop unique entrances and identities for the two components, yet there is still linkage,” said Lisa Tamiris Becker, director of the CU Art Museum.
The museum’s new quarters will include 9,000 square feet of gallery space – more than twice as much as it has now – as well as expanded object storage, a collection study center and small shop.
“It is certainly a very needed facility to raise the reach, to create greater awareness of the museum as a significant cultural resource for the campus as well as for Boulder and the larger Denver-Boulder metro region,” Becker said. “Many are still not aware that we have such a fine collection.”
Construction on the complex is set to begin next summer and be completed in 2009. Like the area’s four other art-institution projects, design of the visual arts complex will be overseen by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood Architects, a Boston firm that competed for the courthouse portion of the Denver Justice Center.
The firm, which has extensive experience with university buildings, including the recently completed Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin, will have to follow CU’s strict campus design guidelines. These require sandstone walls, tile roofs and limestone trim.
“The building should be compatible with the buildings that are presently on the campus,” said Michael McKinnell, a principal with the firm. “But our belief is that there’s a significant difference between compatibility and compliance. We’re not interested in replication but rather in reinvention of the prevailing character of the campus.”
Partnering with Kallmann McKinnell will be Oz Architecture of Denver. Its principal in charge for this project is Rick Petersen, who studied under McKinnell at Harvard University and worked at the Boston firm for three years.
“I’m in awe of this opportunity to work at CU on this project” Petersen said. “It really represents an important project for us.”
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
