The Good, the Great, the Gawd-awful

Today I did one of my cycling tours of Denver architecture, one of those days when I just noodle around taking pictures of buildings.

The good news today for downtown Denver is that one of the least-wonderful surface parking lots, the one facing the Voorhees Memorial in Civic Center, has been replaced by the DNA building....that's Denver Newspaper Agency. Sadly, the only good thing to come from the 2000 merger of the business operations of two once-wonderful newspapers, The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News (note the correct capitalization--"The" is part of the Post's actual name, while "the" is not part of the Rocky's) is this new building, which will house, once its open, the combined business operations of the two "newspapers" and the separate "newsrooms." Note my cynicism. William Newton Byers and Frederick G. Bonfils would be appalled at the sorry state of these once useful members of the Fourth Estate--but I digress.

What I like about the DNA building is the way it completes the north wall of Civic Center. This site has been a surface parking lot for a very long time, probably longer than I've been alive. And now it's this:

When the design for this building was announced, I wasn't happy, because the rendering published in the "paper" made it look like a clone of the nearby Wellington G. Webb Building, the cool curvy building just north of the City & County Building. Like the Webb Building, the DNA features a gently curved element that intersects with a blocky one--but unlike the Webb, it's bright white in color, and the overall effect is that instead of slavishly copying the Webb, it complements it. It also is a nice neighbor to one of downtown's underappreciated gems, the old Petroleum Club building at 16th Street and Broadway. The DNA is separated from this 1960 Modernist office building by an alley, but it keeps a respectful distance, and the DNA's architect's choice of white surely is not coincidental--I think he meant to be a good neighbor to the Petroleum. Here's a view of the two buildings side by side, taken from the shuttle turnaround across the street:

You see that the people who have windows on the southeast side of the Petroleum Building still have their view of the State Capitol because of the way the DNA skooches aside from its older neighbor. And it's even about the same height, creating a nice cohesion for the street.

I also really like what they've done to the Colfax side of this new building at the ground level: established an architecturally interesting covered sidewalk:

Of course you wouldn't want to walk this way if you were intoxicated at all....it could be a bit disorienting.

That was the "Good" of this posting's title. The Great is seen in this next shot, taken at the same point as the one just above, but looking across Colfax. This is one of the more interesting justapositions I've found lately: the new Hamilton Wing of the DAM framed by the archway of the Voorhees Memorial:

And as long as I'm talking about that, here's another shot of the new museum wing, taken from 12th and Acoma. About a mile or two south of Taos there is a famous church, called the Ranchos de Taos Church, and nearly every artist who has ever lived in New Mexico has painted or photographed it. I think the Hamilton Wing will become our Ranchos de Taos:

As you can see, this building is interesting even at the very worst time for taking a photo: midday in the middle of summer. Imagine what this will be like at 4:30 on a December afternoon, the titanium panels reflecting the golden orange of our winter smog sunsets.

And now for the Gawd-awful: less than a block from our wonderful new museum a structure has taken shape on Broadway that defies the English language--I can think of no words to describe how wrong this building is (but I'll try):

No, I don't mean the two story for-lease building on the right. I mean the architectural abomination on the left. Let's see, where to start?

1. The side bears no relationship with the front--it's as though they built an 8-story wall first, and then decided to attach a building of some kind to it. The wall is better suited to a parking garage than an upscale residence. And the wall is cinder block, while the front is stucco--the message is "cheap."

2. Those rounded dormer things on top--as much as I despise the architecture of the Beauvallon, this is worse, because it's like a low budget version of the Beauvallon. It's like settling for Safeway Select when you really want Coke. Neither are good for you, but Coke tastes like real cola. Likewise, the Beauvallon set Denver architecture back about 50 years, but at least they spent some money on the details. Not so, here. Even though they haven't yet installed the balcony railings, nothing can salvage this.

3. The massing and scale--astonishingly wrong for the context. The developer is obviously a greedy bastard from Texas or California who is trying to squeeze as much money as he can from this hot property a half block from the art museum. Note the modest scale of the building on the right--people who lived in Denver 15 or so years ago will remember that this was once painted a garish purple, and housed an office supply store. The building is underutilized right now, but it has nice lines and could be salvaged for a restaurant or something. Also, the Broadway Plaza Motel, which abuts this digusting mass of stucco and cinder block on the far left, is a decent Modernist 3-story structure that is reasonably well-maintained and, as far as I can tell, a fairly viable business. The new neighbor is so far from it in spirit that it's like watching American Idol after an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Although I never thought the structures this building replaced (including a weirdly set-back liquor store) were an asset to Denver, I'd gladly see them rebuilt in place of this mess.

I guess what I'm saying is: there ought to be a law against this kind of vulgarity, against cramming so much housing "product" in such an ungainly way onto this too-visible site, and against the developer and architect ever being allowed to build anything anywhere in the world ever again until the end of time. In October, when the museum has its grand opening, the international architectural press will be here covering it--and what will these journalists see lurking just a short walk away, with nothing to screen it: only the worst building of the 21st century.

No, I don't like to mince words.