Denver Art Museum

[Steven_Draker]

If you find yourself in Denver, Colorado it's worth stopping by the Museum of Art. The Frederic C. Hamilton Building (designed by Libeskind) opened in 2006 and represents the last and newest addition to the Civic Center. Just the architecture of the building is something worth stopping by and admiring.

 

http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/134008/Denver_HamiltonBuilding.jpg

 

Alas the Italian Renaissance temporary exhibition just closed on July 31st.

You can still enjoy the "Marvelous Mud": Mud around the World through September 18th.

 

My personal favorite: the Modern Art exhibition on level 3 and 4 in the Hamilton building.

 

Permanent exhibitions include:

Hamilton building: Western American Art, Oceanic Art, African Art; North building: American Indian & Northwest Coast Art, Pre-Columbian& Spanish Colonial Art, Asian Art, Textile Art, European & American Art, Photography and Historic Western American Art

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/images4/20061010denversh1_450.jpg

 

(Canyon walk ... avoid if you suffer from Acrophobia or vertigo)

 

On the web: http://www.denverartmuseum.org and http://expansion.denverartmuseum.org

[leigh.bess.toad]

Thanks for the spectacular pictures Steven, as well as the recommendation. The architecture of the building is stunning.

[Bosguy]

Thanks Steven. Actually at quick glance, the exterior reminded me of the Sidney Opera House.

 

I think we should visit both just to compare.

 

Bill K.

[+ Charlie]

This one has been on my list of museums to see for a while now, but I haven't been able to get to Denver. These pictures may finally get me going.

[cany10011]

Steven, thanks! I love visiting museums whenever I travel for work. Must see it again next time I'm in the mile high city It seems like we are lucky with a surfeit of designer-inspired museums these days!

 

 

Thanks

 

This one has been on my list of museums to see for a while now, but I haven't been able to get to Denver. These pictures may finally get me going.

[Steven_Draker]

... at quick glance, the exterior reminded me of the Sidney Opera House.

 

Apparently, Libeskind was inspired by the light and the geology of the Rockies http://expansion.denverartmuseum.org/

 

http://www.artscapecolorado.com/images/dam-wing.jpg

 

http://www.daniel-libeskind.com/typo3temp/pics/e5bb7e54f2.jpg

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

Steven - thanks for the suggestion. I'm in the process of planning a Denver trip in the fall and will add this to my list.

[jackhammer91406]

Fascinating design. The irregular facets and shimmering skin remind me of Disney Hall here in Los Angeles.

Thanks for posting.

 

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/645818.jpg

 

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/12195323.jpg

 

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/27345710.jpg

 

Not sure why I can't get the pics to show up instead of only the links. Sorry

 

 

[Epigonos]

I am not familiar with the Denver Art Museum. I am, however, very familiar with the Guggenheim in Bilboa Spain, the Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles both designed by Frank Gehry, the Getty Center in West Los Angeles designed by Richard Meier and Our Lady of the Angeles Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles designed by Rafael Moneo. All four building are magnificent architectural achievements. The problem in these four cases is that although the buildings are wonderful architecturally they are NOT terrible successful as art museums, concert hall and church.

 

The lighting and the wall space provided in the Guggenheim are awful. There simply isn’t sufficient wall space to hang the collection and the rooms are extremely dark.

 

The Disney Concert Hall was designed prior to the Guggenheim but the designs are very similar. Many assume that the Guggenheim was designed first because it was completed first. That is not the case; it was simply built first because there were money problems that delayed the construction of the Disney Concert Hall. The concert hall itself works well but the surrounding arcades are dark, cavernous, and finished in poured concrete which makes them extremely cold in appearance.

 

The several buildings that makeup the Getty Center complex are extremely attractive but on sunny Southern California days one needs very dark glasses to withstand the glare of the stark white stone facing. Additionally one spends a great deal of time moving from one small building to another and walking up and down multiple staircases. The gardens are the most outstanding feature at the Getty and yet Meier walked out when he learned that he didn’t have veto on the garden design which he hated.

 

Poor light planning is the major problem with the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Rafael Moneo insisted on lighting the Cathedral with only exterior natural light. The problem is that the windows he provided were not sufficient to light the huge interior. Eventually lights had to be dropped from the ceiling so that parishioners could see. These lights stick out like sore thumbs and destroy the clean simple design of the nave; they look out of place and they are.

 

It seems that today more and more architects are interested only in the artistic design and appearance of their buildings. They fail to take into account the purpose for which their buildings are being built

[Ivan]

It seems that today more and more architects are interested only in the artistic design and appearance of their buildings. They fail to take into account the purpose for which their buildings are being built

 

Not only architects -- we can also blame museum boards and donors who want a signature building. The Denver museum is stunning, beautifully sited on two blocks, and bisected by a major road (amazing to see the museum coming up from several blocks away and then driving under the building). Libeskind also designed the recently opened addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto -- a stunning contraption, called the Crystal because it looks like crystal shards sticking out of the ground next to the old ROM building. Both the Denver and Toronto museums have stunning exteriors and amazing interior spaces, with good interior finishes and space galore. But as to displaying art -- forget it! What do you do with a room that is 30+ feet long, 18 or 20 feet high, and less than 10 feet at its widest, with angular walls? Or a "crystal shard" that is 50 feet high with lots of glass and open areas joined to other shards -- but no wall space to hang exhibits? Both buildings are visually fascinating but completely fail as museums.

 

BTW, Gehry, another builder of signature buildings like the Bilboa Guggenheim or the Disney Center in LA, mentioned in another post, built an addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario, also in Toronto, in the same time frame as Libeskind's addition. However, the AGO board kept Gehry to a simple rectangular addition (with Gehry's signatuare metal exterior skin and a shimmering glass awning, toned down from the original sketches) -- the addition has marvelous interior galleries, large rooms with rectangular dimensions and natural light, perfect for hanging art. AGO got a fantastic usable addition that has an eye-catching but simple exterior, whereas Denver and ROM got spectacular buildings that are almost useless for displaying art.

[trilingual]

Haven't seen the new building in Denver, but the Museum's collection of pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial art is stunning! Worth a visit if only for that! And if you find yourself between coasts, don't forget the superb Nelson-Atkins Museum here in Kansas City, which has a stunning new building of its own and outstanding collections! There's a lot more to art in America than the two coasts!

[Steven_Draker]

In the same light the most stunning architectural design I've seen so far would be the Milwaukee Art Museum designed by Santiago Calatrava.

 

A special "Thank-You" to the generous gentlemen (who shall remain nameless) who brought me there and was kind enough to show me around.

 

http://paulparsons.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/milwaukee-art-museum.jpg

 

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/1212/calatravax.jpg

 

The Museum’s signature wings, the Burke Brise Soleil, form a moveable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan. The brise soleil is made up of 72 steel fins, ranging in length from 26 to 105 feet. The entire structure weighs 90 tons. It takes 3.5 minutes for the wings to open or close. Sensors on the fins continually monitor wind speed and direction; whenever winds exceed 23 mph for more than 3 seconds, the wings close automatically.

 

The “wings” open Monday–Sunday at 10 a.m. with the Museum, close/reopen at noon, and close again with the Museum at 5 p.m.; except on Thursdays when the Museum closes at 8 p.m. This schedule is, however, subject to change without advance notice due to weather, special events, or maintenance.

 

http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicv/vfiles17485.jpg

[rvwnsd]

... There's a lot more to art in America than the two coasts!

 

That's a great reminder. That East Coast bias goes way back. In the late 1800's/early 1900's, New York art snobs laughed at the wealthy Chicago ladies who bought up every piece of Impressionist art they could find. Today, many of those pieces make up the Art Institute of Chicago's world-renowned Impressionist collection.

 

Speaking of museum buildings, the Modern Wing at AIC (designed by Renzo Piano) and the Milwaukee Art Museum's Quadracci Pavilion (designed by Santiago Calatrava) are both quite stunning. The Modern Wing is beautifully austere. The Quadracci Pavillion has a wing-like mechanism (brise soleil) that opens during the day and folds back up at night. Laverne and Shirley would be very proud.

 

 

[Steven_Draker]

Interesting discussion so far. Thanks for your input Epigonos, Ivan, trilingual and rvwnsd (great minds think alike)

 

It seems that today more and more architects are interested only in the artistic design and appearance of their buildings. They fail to take into account the purpose for which their buildings are being built.

 

The problem in these four cases is that although the buildings are wonderful architecturally they are NOT terrible successful as art museums, concert hall and church.

 

Why would you blame the architects for that? Personally, I think that the architects aren't fully responsible for that. The cause for not being successful might be elsewhere, IMHO.

[justaguy]

The Milwaukee Art Museum looks like a fantastic piece of architecture, of which I was unfamiliar. I'm putting it on my to see list for my next trip north. Thanks for the post.

[Battle]

The Milwaukee Art Museum was a wonderful backdrop for the recent Transformers Darkside of the Moon.

[Battle]

Not only architects -- we can also blame museum boards and donors who want a signature building. The Denver museum is stunning, beautifully sited on two blocks, and bisected by a major road (amazing to see the museum coming up from several blocks away and then driving under the building). Libeskind also designed the recently opened addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto -- a stunning contraption, called the Crystal because it looks like crystal shards sticking out of the ground next to the old ROM building. Both the Denver and Toronto museums have stunning exteriors and amazing interior spaces, with good interior finishes and space galore. But as to displaying art -- forget it! What do you do with a room that is 30+ feet long, 18 or 20 feet high, and less than 10 feet at its widest, with angular walls? Or a "crystal shard" that is 50 feet high with lots of glass and open areas joined to other shards -- but no wall space to hang exhibits? Both buildings are visually fascinating but completely fail as museums.

 

BTW, Gehry, another builder of signature buildings like the Bilboa Guggenheim or the Disney Center in LA, mentioned in another post, built an addition to the Art Gallery of Ontario, also in Toronto, in the same time frame as Libeskind's addition. However, the AGO board kept Gehry to a simple rectangular addition (with Gehry's signatuare metal exterior skin and a shimmering glass awning, toned down from the original sketches) -- the addition has marvelous interior galleries, large rooms with rectangular dimensions and natural light, perfect for hanging art. AGO got a fantastic usable addition that has an eye-catching but simple exterior, whereas Denver and ROM got spectacular buildings that are almost useless for displaying art.

 

Another failed Liebeskind space is the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre at the City University of Hong Kong.

[Guest Bauer]

Stunning is not the word for it.

 

When put side by side with the world's finest museums, say the Louvre, as an example its shortcomings are painfully apparent.

 

Typically derivative work cast from an era. And a very identifiable era at that.

 

Some suggest museums should be timeless places to which people look to, over the course of centuries. Sadly, as so often is the case, when Boards wish to commission, what they receive is from the "turd in the plaza" school. A rather large open expanse of concrete from which emerges some brutalist, post modernist or neo-deconstructionist monolith as a cathedral to the arts.

 

As if, as some sop to the Louvre, all that was needed was a place for prayer.

 

Another glass of Chardonnay, anyone?? ;-)

[Guest Bauer]

Or red, perhaps?

[Guest Bauer]

Alas the Italian Renaissance temporary exhibition just closed on July 31st.

How ironic.

 

As are all things "temporary".

 

Closure saying more than open exhibitionism.

[Steven_Draker]

Another glass of Chardonnay, anyone?? ;-)

 

You drink at "work" ... ?

[Epigonos]

There is one major question that must be asked and answered regarding architecture. Is architecture an independent art form that should serve its own needs regardless of the proposed function of the building? Prior to the early years of the 20th Century the answer to that question would have been a resounding NO. As the 20th Century progressed more and more architects began to see themselves as “ARTISTS” not as draftsmen or as builders. As this trend increased less and less attention was paid to the proposed purpose of the building.

 

Today we don’t know the names of the architects of most of the great French Gothic Cathedrals. These buildings were designed with a definite religious purpose in mind and the architects/draftsmen who designed them never deviated from that purpose. Today’s leading world architects want to make damn sure that the whole world knows who they are and how wonderfully innovative their buildings are. In their minds function is at most of secondary importance.

 

I would certainly agree with those who have stated that the various boards and committees that oversee these building must share some of the responsibility for their beautiful but non-functional design. But those board members and committee members are as vain as their architects and want to be known to posterity as the people who promoted these wonderful buildings – function be hanged.

[Bosguy]

Steven,

I just wanted to thank you for this thread which resurrected my love of architecture. As a youngster, to be an architect was my goal. As we all know, our paths don't necessarily follow our dreams. As time past, my business and family life overtook many hopes and dreams of youth, and my love of architecture drifted into obscurity. This thread rekindled that long lost love, and I plan to research and study this wonderful profession again.

 

Bill

[Phil_musc]

I've always been a fan of religious architecture - be it cathedrals or synagogues. Don't know why - just am. So on European tours when some other people roll their eyes at going to see another church, I say bring it on - it'w one of the reasons we came here. I feel kind of the same way about Steven's posted pictures here. These are incredible spaces that have almost a monumental sculptural-ness about them is that is wonderful to see. As an exercise in practical building space, however, there are most likely some problems and shortcomings. But then too, in the great churches of Europe as a space to bring the worshipper closer to the divine, might there not also be shortcomings?

[+ Charlie]

I agree with those, like Epigonos, who question whether these buildings function for their ostensible purposes, but the fact is that they are not really built for those purposes. The boards and committees that decide to build these edifices, and the individuals, foundations and governments that finance them, are not trying to showcase their contents or function, but to attract customers who would otherwise be uninterested in coming to their organization or city. Bilbao, an otherwise touristically uninviting industrial city, has had an enormous boost in foreign tourist traffic since the Gehry-designed museum was built, not because of what's in the building, but because people want to see the building itself. In that sense, architecture has become an independent art form, and one that excites many people who are not particularly interested in other art forms, partly because a superficial enjoyment of a building doesn't require the kind of background knowledge and intense scrutiny that other arts demand.

 

Redding is a city in northern California that hired Calatrava to design an unnecessary bridge across its river, with the expressed purpose of getting people to come to the city to see it, and they do! It has "put Redding on the map," just as the city leaders hoped (I've stopped there twice, just to walk across the bridge, like thousands of other persons); even if one doesn't read the art and architecture journals, one can see it at a distance from the Interstate, a kind of lure one can't get from a plain museum full of fabulous art. Buildings like the Denver museum do the same thing. Milwaukee is not a city that gets many tourists, but people will probably come to see the building, without any concern about what is in it.

 

Sydney would be a tourist magnet without the opera house, yet it has become the signature icon of the city. I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn't function very well as an operatic performance space, but who goes there for a solid but provincial opera company? It sells out anyway. I can't remember offhand any particular contents of Libeskind's Jewish Museum in Berlin, but the experience of the building itself is indelibly fixed in my memory. So, to answer Epigonos's question, yes, architecture is now an independent art form that serves its own needs (and its sponsors') regardless of the function of the building.