DENVER ART MUSUEM
EXPRESSIONISM
“It is not a stand-alone 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” - Daniel Libeskind
The architectural building that to me gives an emotional impact to its occupants is the Denver Art Museum designed by the Italian Architect Gio Ponti, is an expansion and addition to the existing museum. This is because the building is a kind of city hub, tying together downtown, the Civic Center, and forming a strong connection to the golden triangle neighborhood. Since its opening, the building has become a major cultural landmark for Denver, attracting thousands of visitors to the museum complex. Is the core of the new cultural district of the city. The most striking feature of the museum is the triangular shape of a corner that is fired out of the street.
"The amazing vitality and growth of Denver”, from its foundation to the present inspires the form of the museum. Coupled with the magnificent topography with its breathtaking views of the sky and the Rocky Mountains, the dialogue between the boldness of construction and the romanticism of the landscape creates a unique place in the world. The museum consists of a series of interlocking rectangles. This is an aggressive form of geometric design, pure and irregular, glass and titanium, reflecting the peaks and rock crystal from the nearby mountains.
One of the challenges of building the Denver Art Museum was to work closely and respond to the extraordinary range of transformations in light, coloration, atmospheric effects, temperature and weather conditions unique to the City. I insisted these be integrated not only functionally and physically, but culturally and experientially for the benefit of the visitors' experience.
Besides, the building is not based on an idea of style or the rehashing of ready made ideas or external shape because its architecture brings out the feeling that it does not separate the inside from the outside or provide a pretty facade behind which a typical experience exists; rather this architecture has an organic connection to the public at large and to those aspects of experience that are also intellectual, emotional, and sensual. The integration of these dimensions for the enjoyment and edification of the public is achieved in a building that respects the hand crafted nature of architecture and its immediate communication from the hand, to the eye, to the mind. After all, the language of architecture beyond words themselves is the laughter of light, proportion and materiality."
The Museum complex includes a landscaped pedestrian plaza, designed Libeskind, featuring significant works of outdoor sculpture.
The museum has developed at least 20 different ways of hanging objects on the dramatic, sloping walls, which were designed to convey the jagged angles of the Rockies.
