The wait is over at one of the most important synoptic collections in the western U.S. As part of a 50th-anniversary celebration of its iconic Gio Ponti building, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) will officially reopen on Sunday following a four-year $150 million facelift and campus expansion by Machado Silvetti and Fentress Architects.
The expansion was necessary to unify the Golden Triangle campus. A new welcoming center is combined with the Hamilton Building designed by Daniel Libeskind to form a less “standoffish” offering for a visitorship that has nearly doubled in the past ten years.
The upgrade plan has emphasized increased space for the public alongside a corrected program which had to be rearranged after the introduction of Libeskind’s building in 2006.
Photos reveal reinstalled Asian Art galleries on level 5 and an upgraded Jana & Fred Bartlit Learning and Engagement Center, moved from the basement to a much more dynamic space across two levels. Another 20,000-square-foot reinstallation of the Latin American Art and Art of the Americas Galleries occupies level 4, while the remaining three levels serve as showcases for creative curatorial reimaginings of DAM’s vaunted Western Art, Fashion, Photography, and Indigenous holdings.
A restaurant named for the building’s originator adds an architectural *chef’s kiss* to the museum’s 50,000-square-foot Sie Welcome Center.
"For more than three years, the north side of our campus has been undergoing a bold transformation to improve the visitor experience while honoring and preserving the building's historic architecture,” Director Christoph Heinrich said. “The events of the past year have reaffirmed the importance of art as a source of inspiration, healing and hope, and we look forward to showcasing the museum's global collections through a new lens and providing new spaces for learning and engagement with the reopening of the full campus."
Heinrich has done a tremendous amount throughout the course of his tenure to transform the museum and honor the iconic work of Ponti. An exhibition of the architect’s work will coincide with the reopening and remain on view in the Martin Building’s level 2 Design Galleries until 2022.
12 Comments
Each addition falls to a lower and lower standard than the original Gio Ponti building. Truly disappointing, Denver.
Liebeskind's shart is the worst of the group. Glad the Ponti building is being preserved without being turned into a fucked up remuddle like the Albright Knox and Hirschorn museums are doing with their 1960's gems.
archanonymous, have you visited the original Gio Ponti building, or the Libeskind addition in person?
While I was initially drawn to the shiny-ness of the Liebeskind, over my time here I've come to appreciate/prefer the Ponti. The new deck sounds nice and I can't wait to check it and the new "Grand Staircase" out in person.
@Levi - yes, many times. Before the Libeskind and after. I guess I'll have to go again now that this is completed, if only to marvel at how completely impotent the newest addition is compared to Ponti's work.
I'm not a huge fan of Libeskind usually, and haven't liked his other buildings I've visited, but I really appreciate all the irregular volumes make the galleries feel uniquely meandering and playful at the DAM. I'm glad you've been in person- even if I favor the Libeskind addition more than you do, I respect your opinion more because you're not just looking at photos on the internet! And the Gio Ponti continues to grow on me, so I'd have to agree the original was the best.
There are certainly redeeming qualities in the Libeskind design (see comment below also) and I never said it was bad - it just doesn't live up to Ponti building. The building itself has some compelling moments. I think the exhibit and curatorial design lets it down in a lot of ways. Same situation at Steven Holl's Bloch Building in Kansas City - formally complex architecture that is let down by lack of vision in curation.
I always loved how the large Claus Oldenburg sculptures on the exterior plazas interact with the forms of the Libeskind addition.
Embarrassingly bad assemblage.
There is a difference between gently stimulating the senses and assaulting them.
This circular aberration also undermines the relationship (tenuous as it was) between Libeskind and Ponti's work - mostly achieved through Libeskind's titanium skin corresponding to Ponti's mosaic tiles, and also the thin slit windows on Libeskind's corresponding to same in Ponti's original work. Much as I dislike Libeskind's plopping down angular forms across the world and stuffing into them whatever program the poor institution that hired him has requested, he at least does some of the work demanded of modern architects.
it looks like an airport terminal addition.
mostly it's hard to care - i feel like the civic museum as a typology has become something of a purposeless and pretentious piece. how much museum floor area does a prosperous mid-sized city with no local art history need? at least LACMA has the audacity to admit the production of the building is the art.
LACMA is pretending that the building is art while massively reducing their art collection to pay for it. Go figure. In the meantime just be glad it's not another holocaust or 9/11 memorial.
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