Denver Art Museum - Architecture

Architecture

The newest edition to the Denver Art Museum is the Frederic C. Hamilton Building which holds the Modern and Contemporary Art collection along with the Architecture and Design and Oceanic Art collections. The unique building will also serve as the main entrance to the rest of the museum complex. This ambitious design doubled the size of the museum allowing for an even greater expansion of the art inside of the daring aesthetic exterior.

The complex geometrical design of the Frederic C. Hamilton building consists of 230,000 square feet of titanium shingles that cover the 20 sloping planes of the structure. The angles jut in all directions and the 2,740-ton structure contains more than 3,100 pieces of steel. One of the angles extends 100 feet over the road running below. Of all the 20 planes, not one is parallel or perpendicular to another.

Because of the distinct configuration of the steel to produce the very bold building, the Frederick C. Hamilton extension of the DAM received a Presidential Award of Excellence from the American Institute of Steel Construction’s 2007 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) awards program. In the determination of winning projects, the AISC’s judges considered each project’s use of structural steel from both an architectural and structural engineering perspective with emphases on “creative solutions to the project’s program requirements; applications of innovative design approaches in areas such as connections, gravity systems, lateral load resisting systems, fire protection, and blast; the aesthetic and visual impact of the project, particularly in the coordination of structural steel elements with other materials; the innovative uses of architecturally exposed structural steel and advances in the use of structural steel, either technically or in the architectural expression.”

The design had so many extended angular planes to be reminiscent of the landscape. Similar to the peaked roof of the Denver International Airport symbolizing the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, the Denver Art Museum’s Frederic C. Hamilton building is meant to emulate the unique, sharp angles the nearby Rockies hold as well as the geometric crystals found at the base of the mountains close to Denver. Architect of the intricate structure, Daniel Libeskind said, “I was inspired by the light and geology of the Rockies, but most of all by the wide-open faces of the people of Denver” Because of the steel construction covered in 9,000 titanium panels, the building also reflects the soft and strong light of the Colorado sunshine. The architect of the original North Building, Gio Ponti, said that “Art is a treasure, and these thin but jealous walls defend it.” Ponti wanted the DAM building, housing the important art within, to break from the traditional museum archetypes by placing more than a million reflective glass tiles on the building’s exterior along with a dramatic “castle-like” façade.

While the majority of the artwork is within the buildings, there are also significant works of outdoor sculptures. Libeskind also designed a landscaped pedestrian plaza to go along with the Denver Art Museum complex as a whole. These outdoor sculptures include 'Scottish Angus Cow and Calf' by Dan Ostermiller, the 'Big Sweep' by Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg and an untitled work by Beverly Pepper. On the entire design, Libeskind commented, “The project is not designed as a standalone building but as part of a composition of public spaces, monuments and gateways in this developing part of the city, contributing to the synergy amongst neighbors large and intimate.”

With such a dramatic design for a museum, the building has received mixed reviews. The architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times, Christopher Hawthorne, says that museum architecture does not always blend cohesively with a great architectural achievement. Hawthorne reported that “It’s a really stunning piece of architectural sculpture, but the aggressive forms make it a pretty terrible place for showing and looking at art.” The director of the Denver Art Museum, Lewis Sharp, says that one of the most thrilling moments about the building is how the visitors are brought in to seeing the artwork within in an entirely new, exciting environment as the artists’ work is displayed and hung in over 20 different ways on the dramatic, sloping, obliquely shaped galleries. Sharp states, “I think you often see things that you had never seen before. It just raises all types of potentially new ways to engage a visitor.” And many visitors and Denver residents love it as Emily and David Andreeson say, “We’re in normal looking buildings every single day. It’s just kind of an experience to walk into a room that doesn’t look like rooms that we would normally be in.” And that is exactly what the museum was looking for as their expansion, Sharp says. He stated that the museum’s board was seeking the opportunity to draw people to the wonderful city by building something radical and spectacular to capture the attention of people around the country and the world. In any case, the Frederic C. Hamilton building is certainly a standout among the city-scape of Denver in many ways.