Denver doesn’t have a lot of truly modern buildings in its architectural lineup. While other American cities spent the 20th century loading their urban landscapes with sleek, stripped-down structures of concrete, glass and steel, our region saw beauty in old-school ways — we’re a metropolis of brick, stone and wood, for the most part, with residential neighborhoods more likely to mimic Tudor-era England than forward-looking California.
That makes the modern icons we do have particularly important. They tell a crucial story about the evolution of building technology and the development of new materials, while chronicling landmark moments in local lore.
The Boettcher Memorial Tropical Conservatory at the might be the most significant among them, or at least the most beloved. It captures the trademarks of modern buildings at their best — it’s a marvel of woven concrete and Plexiglas that relies on pure geometry for its good looks.
But it also marks an evolutionary moment in city history, when the very modern idea took hold that parks and open spaces need to be integrated into urban life rather than left over as an afterthought on the edges. It wasn’t so long after civic leaders moved scores of graves to make a beautiful garden in the middle of things that this signature home for warm-weather flora went up.
That was 50 years ago and the garden is celebrating the anniversary by giving a little love to the structure. It will get a medium-sized makeover with help from a $200,000 grant from History Colorado toward the renovation. The garden also is hosting a party and panel Friday evening to mark the building’s birth and its role in the community.
“It’s a building and a piece of sculpture,” said , who runs preservation programs for History Colorado. “It’s the literal expression of the idea of organic architecture.”
That is the real key to success for architects Victor Hornbein and Edward D. White Jr. Their building manages to be delicate and sturdy at the same time. It soars high enough to hold giant palms that barely brush against its vaulted ceiling. Its clear Plexiglas panels make it open and transparent while letting in enough sunshine to make growing banana trees possible at 5,280 feet above sea level.
Despite its height, it retains both a horizontal bearing and an unobstructed openness that displays influences of the era’s most important American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Where it does show ornament, in the patterns of its rising ribs and in decorative pours of concrete at its entrances and foundation, it borrows Wright’s habit of making things pretty through the repetition of straight lines and precise angles. It is a hard building that feels soft.
You can see similar attributes in the other structures designed by Hornbein around town, perhaps his best being the lean, low .
But the conservatory holds a more special place in the city’s identity. Warm and dewy year round, it serves as a common hearth of sorts. Every school kid, at some point, passes through its doors and climbs the 25 steps to the top of its tree house. A stroll along its winding paths — and up and down multiple levels, past ferns and philodendron, around elephant ear plants and ant feeder trees — is classic Denver.
The city may adore its Queen Anne castles and its rough-hewn brown palaces, but the conservatory’s sentimental side makes it the rare “modern building that people instantly get,” as Turner puts it.
“Modernism is absolutely a part of our state’s history,” said Turner. “Modern buildings need to be preserved and maintained just like Victorian buildings.”
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540, rrinaldi@denverpost.com or @rayrinaldi
BOETTCHER MEMORIAL TROPICAL CONSERVATORY’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT
The Denver Botanic Gardens presents a celebration and panel discussion to commemorate the iconic architectural landmark’s anniversary. 6 p.m. Friday, at the garden, 1007 York St. 720-865-3501 or botanicgardens.org.
