The design of the new Still Museum in downtown Denver brought rave reviews Tuesday from many of the city’s leading architects and artists, who believe it will add to a city becoming known for its “signature architecture.”
“I think it is incredibly sophisticated and appropriate,” said Rick Petersen, principal of OZ Architecture, the architect on the University of Colorado Art Museum. “It’s got a scale that fits well in the neighborhood. It is a modest building but has power to it.”
The unscientific results of an online Denver Post poll were a bit more divided. While 37 percent of more than 1,550 voters either “loved” or “liked” the design, nearly 25 percent either “disliked” or “hated” it. The rest were neutral or had no opinion.
The 31,500-square-foot museum will be the home of the paintings of Clyfford Still, a central figure in the 1940s’ and 1950s’ development of abstract expressionism.
In the museum will be more than 2,400 of the famed abstract impressionist’s works, 94 percent of everything he created.
The museum, scheduled to open to the public in 2010, will be just west of the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building on Bannock Street between 12th and 13th avenues.
Adam Lerner, executive director of the Laboratory of Art and Ideas at Belmar, said Still Museum architect Brad Cloepfil and his Allied Works have designed “a fantastic building.”
“It is understated but elegant,” Lerner said. “I think we have some signature buildings in Denver we can really be proud of, and this adds to the list.”
Mayor John Hickenlooper thinks it is another feather in the cap of a city that is gaining national recognition for its beautiful downtown.
Although the reaction of the mayor, architects and artists was uniformly good, some others said the design was too boxy.
Jack Selway, a semi-retired public relations specialist from Pueblo, said he was thoroughly unimpressed by the design.
“It is not very inviting and just cold,” Selway said. “It looked like it could be a pretty good police building. I thought it might make a great building for the Department of Waterworks. I know what I’m saying is very unkind to an architect who has poured his soul into it.”
Another online Post reader commented that it “looked like a jail” and “the thing will age like a parking lot.”
