Downtown Denver

26 Civic Center Park, Denver Confluence Park, Denver 16th street Mall, Denver Downtown Denver Civic Center, Central Business District, Lower Downtown, and River North By CheNey feRgusoN Platte Valley By ToDD WeNskoski 27 As demographics have shifted in the past 10 or 15 years, Denver has experienced an influx of people interested in living and working in the downtown core. With new infill buildings and open spaces, downtown Denver has been transformed into a series of lively “places for people” with mixed-use office, retail, and residential buildings, municipal and cultural venues, and art-filled public plazas. With century-old brick structures, classical architecture, modern high-rises, and contemporary “green” buildings, downtown Denver presents a collage of architectural styles and urban forms that contributes to this story of urban evolution and allows for future urbanism. The projects that have brought life to downtown are highlighted in the following chapter. 28 Colorado urbanizing: experiencing New urbanism Civic Center/Golden Triangle museum-tour map. A bridge links this new Inspired by the City Beautiful movement, building across 13th Street to the original 1971 Denver’s Civic Center Park began as a vision museum building designed by Italian architect from one of Denver’s esteemed mayors, Rob- Gio Ponti. ert W. Speer, and was brought to life by the Across Martin Plaza are the complementary renowned landscape architect, Frederick Law metal-clad geometric forms of the Museum Olmsted, Jr. This classical park is shaped by Residences, also designed by Studio Libeskind the Colorado State Capitol and Denver City and with Davis Partnership. With retail space on County Building on the east/west axis and the the ground floor, a shared parking garage, and Voorhies Memorial and Greek Amphitheatre 56 luxury apartments on the top six stories, the on the north/south axis. The Denver Parks & building introduced high-end urban housing to Recreation Department and Mundus Bishop the city’s cultural center. Behind the museum, Design have created a new master plan and between 13th and 14th avenues on Bannock design guidelines for the park to restore historic Street, is the site for the Clyfford Still Museum, structures so that they are consistent with the being designed by Allied Works Architecture in character and experience of the park landscape. Portland, Oregon. The museum will house the Juxtaposed next to the classicism of Civic works of Clyfford Still, the legendary American Center Park in the Golden Triangle neighbor- Abstract Expressionist artist. hood is the new Denver Art Museum extension, On the north side of 13th Street, the Denver the Frederic C. Hamilton Building. This tita- Public Library, designed by Michael Graves, nium-clad architectural sculpture was designed the cofounder of Postmodern architecture, was by the eminent architect Daniel Libeskind and opened to acclaim in 1995. The library, the larg- Denver architects Davis Partnership. Opened in est between Los Angeles and Chicago, features 2006, the controversial structure brought archi- towers, buttresses, and whimsical spaces for tecture and urban form into the realm of public children that suggest the worlds of fantasy and discussion and put Denver on the international classical literature. Civic Center Park, Denver Wellington e. Webb Municipal Build, Denver Downtown Denver 29 Framing Civic Center Park to the north is the Wellington E. Webb Municipal Building, completed in 2002. Designed by Tryba Uniting the City with Public Art Architects and RNL Design, the 12-story LEED-Gold municipal Public art, including some quirky and gigantic office complex offers a model of sleek sustainable architecture sculptures, is a common thread that unites in the city core. The central atrium spine of this civic landmark the Civic Center Park/Golden Triangle area, visually and symbolically connects the State Capitol Complex and thanks to a requirement that developers the central business district. The civic plaza at Colfax Avenue and contribute 1 percent of the cost of major 14th Street displays the municipal center’s theme engraved on the capital projects to public art. I See What You Mean depicts a big blue bear peering into a walls: “This is where we build the City.” window at the Colorado Convention Center. The Big Sweep, a 35-foot broom and dust- pan, Denver Monoliths, a 40-foot abstract sculpture, and the Scottish Angus Cow and Calf surround the Denver Art Museum. The Key UrbAnist Denver Public Library plaza displays the Jennifer Moulton, FAIA 16-ton Lao Tzu and The Yearling, a 21-foot red chair with a pony. At the Wellington E. Jennifer Moulton was the first woman Center, Stapleton, the Denver Art Webb Municipal Building, the large granite director of Denver’s Community Plan- Museum extension, the Wellington E. sculpture Janus Head, with two heads facing ning and Development Agency, from Webb Municipal Building, the Central east and west, reminds us the city must look 1992 to 2002. She died in 2003, leaving Platte Valley, and the Millennium to the past as well as the future. Denver a rich legacy of urban design Bridge. Known for her leadership and and historic preservation. Trained as abilities as a deal maker, Moulton el- —Cheney Ferguson an architect, Moulton previously was evated urban design within the lexicon the executive director of Historic of urbanism. Moulton’s sister noted in Denver. She believed it was a privilege her eulogy: “Jennifer was feisty, inde- to be a civil servant and, as Denver’s pendent, strong-willed, fiercely loyal, planning director, implemented many funny, passionate, and intelligent.” significant projects, including Blue- print Denver, Invesco Field, the Pepsi Clyfford still Museum, Denver frederic C. hamilton Building, Denver.

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