While the real-estate market struggled in recent years, one architectural style flourished in and around Denver: new and remodeled modern and contemporary homes.
For those of us who have wondered about the actual living space behind those luxe closed doors, the Austin, Texas-based event production company Modern Home Tours LLC is again providing an opportunity for design-loving lookie-loos to take a peek.
Its second Modern Home Tour Denver features seven houses — . , happening from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. June 2, are $25 in advance and $30 the day of the tour (details at denver .modernhometours.com).
There is one departure from the way homes were procured for the inaugural Modern Home Tour Denver in 2011. This year, organizers enlisted an out-of-town “curator”: former Architectural Record magazine managing editor Ingrid Spencer.
Besides brushing up on recent national coverage of Denver’s residential architecture scene, Spencer also enlisted input from local talent including this event’s, and featured local .
Speaking last week from her home office in Austin, Spender argued that having a Denver home-tour curator with an objective eye — as opposed to someone embedded in the hearty local modernism community — is an advantage.
Q: Had you visited Denver much prior to working on this tour?
A: I’ve had family in Colorado, so I’ve been there many times. I hadn’t been to Denver recently, but I have followed the architecture there and I knew things were bubbling up as far as modern architecture goes. … This was my first time really getting into the architecture scene there.
Q: So what are your impressions of modernism in Denver?
A: I didn’t know the history there. So I started to research these different neighborhoods and (the corresponding) modernist residential movements. It seems like (Denver modernism) is really a story about neighborhoods. You’ve got great midcentury modern areas like and , but that doesn’t necessarily mean the houses for the tour are in those neighborhoods.
We do have one midcentury renovation in Park Hill, and then we have another house that’s more contemporary modern, in the Highlands, and a loft in the River North neighborhood.
Q: What were you looking for as you searched for homes to include in this tour?
A: The way I begin in any city with these tours is I approach architects I’ve worked in the past … then I coerce and I beg. Sometimes it’s easy, because my goal is to get these architects noticed. But other times? There’s not much in this for homeowners but inconvenience. So I often have to coerce the homeowner and make them understand that this is really about promoting their architect.
Q: What impressions of Denver architecture did you come away with?
A: Especially when (Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum addition) was built (in 2006), that was really a turning point for the whole architectural community. That’s a significant destination building on a national and even international scale, and I think it changed perceptions quite a bit. It showed that Denver is progressing. And looking at all this modern residential architecture, you can see it. Denver is no cow town, no way.
Elana Ashanti Jefferson: 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com
