The be-our-guest fest
Doors Open Denver is huge this year. Here are 10 picks.
Doors Open Denver has a lot to offer for 2019: More than 50 separate buildings and sites that people can pop into at anytime; 59 special tours guided by experts; and five new artist-designed cultural activities to keep things interesting.
That’s right on-mission for an annual event, sponsored by the architectural community, that does its best to show Denverites the inside of the buildings they pass by all the time. If there’s an interesting skyscraper or a church you’ve always wanted to see, or a firehouse, office, school
or historic hospital, it just might be on the Doors Open Denver list.
This year, there are a few new things to know about, including new or rarely opened sites, such as the massive Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Capitol Hill. Notable this time around is the event’s geographic focus on the La Alma-lincoln Park neighborhood.
The West Denver area is lowrise and humble, compared to a place like downtown with its glassy towers, but it has its share of gems. Among them, the Ross Broadway Branch Library, the headquarters of Semple Brown Design and the Alliance Francaise de Denver cultural center.
They’re not the kind of flashy, public structures that a city tends to show off to tourists, but their inclusion gets at something that is, perhaps, more important to architecture than just being a pretty face: They remind us how buildings bring people together, how they can help us learn and lift up our workday, and how they serve as place-makers by sheltering communities as they grow, come of age and develop their history.
Doors Open Denver, set for Sept. 21-22, comes in three categories: the open sites, which people can wander into for free during the two days; the insider tours, which require a paid signup; and the commissioned art and cultural actives that tap the talent of local creatives.
Here are a few picks that stand out in the pack. (For times and starting locations of the tours, see the Denver Architectural Foundation website.)
1. Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (open site)
Everyone knows this towering 1912 church, designed by architect Leon Coquard, because of its prominent place on Colfax Avenue just up the street from the State Capitol. Still, many people haven’t been inside to see its 68foot-high arched, vaulted ceilings or its spiral staircases or the vast open rooms that encompass its considerable 43,560 square feet. The cathedral is one of the few, over-the-top French Gothic-style houses of worship in the city.
2. Ketchum Building, now Sprocket Design +Planning (open site)
The 1958 Ketchum building, at 730 Kalamath St., is a object in Denver, a unique example of thinshell concrete construction that uses poured concrete, reinforced by its domeshaped roof, as the main structural component. Denver engineer Milo Ketchum specialized in the technique and designed his building to serve as an example for clients. It’s full of mid-century flourish and expansive spaces. Now, it’s home, fittingly, to one of the city’s most creative developers.
3. Bethesda TB Sanatorium, now Denver Academy (insider tour)
The Bethesda Sanatorium, developed in the early 1900s on 22 acres of land, takes visitors back to a time when Denver’s climate and altitude made it a destination for tuberculosis sufferers from across the county. The former Dutch Lutheran Church’s legacy might be a downer, but the design is lasting, with its prominent gate and tower and a Harry Potter-style library. There’s also a mini museum, with artifacts from the early 1900s.
4. Alliance Francaise de Denver (open site)
Alliance Francaise de Denver is one of the city’s oldest nonprofits and has worked to honor and promote French culture since 1897. The building that now accommodates it is just as old. The structure, at 571 Galapago St., is really the conglomeration of three distinct residential buildrare ings that were constructed over three decades. Alliance Francaise de Denver brought them together efficiently in 2003, creating a complex that’s a lot more interesting than its brick exterior lets on.
5. Eugene Grove’s Holland House (insider tour)
Here’s your chance to get inside this treasure designed in 1932 by Groves, a pioneer in the use of precast concrete panels. It was a model of sturdiness back in the day, but it’s no bunker. Rather, it’s an ornate landmark that defines the character of its University Hills neighborhood. It’s also well-deserving of its designation as a historic landmark.
6. Alan Gass’ Idiosyncratic Tour (insider tour)
This might be the don’tmiss attraction of the weekend, a personal tour of Denver architect Gass’ favorite buildings downtown. Gass is a legend in the design community here, the maker of many interesting sites himself and a collaborator, decades ago, with I.M. Pei when the international icon came to Denver to create built wonders for businessman Willam Zeckendorf. Gass knows more about 20th century Denver urban development than anyone else around, and he has lots of stories to share.
7. La Plazita (arts and culture activity)
Doors Open Denver is creating a pop-up plaza at 965 Santa Fe Drive on the patio of the Center for Visual Arts, one of the city’s best contemporary art galleries (maybe the best). This is a great place to center your Doors Open experience because there will be food and drinks and a Latino heritage market, all sheltered by a temporary gazebo, reminiscent of the performance-friendly structures that abound in plazas throughout Latin America.
8. Adobe Village construction with Carlos Fresquez (arts and culture activity)
Another attraction at the Center for Visual Arts, this interactive adobe build is a reminder that all of that great architecture we enjoy today has its roots in other places, including traditional adobe structures that date back thousands of years. Carlos Fresquez, one of the city’s favorite painters, along with artist Tsehai Johnson, will lead hands-on workshops as visitors come together to create the adobe.
9. Chicano Mural Tour (insider tour)
There’s so much public art in Denver these days that it’s hard to know what’s authentic and what is the work of pretenders. This tour aims to set you straight, showing off some of the best examples inspired by the Chicano movement in La Alma-lincoln Park. Lucia Martinez, who carries on a legacy of family history in the neighborhood, leads the tour and tells the interesting stories behind the creations.
10. Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center Hotel (insider tour)
Sure, you can wander into the lobby of this hotel at just about anytime. But most locals don’t, and that’s a missed opportunity. The hotel has been carefully restored as of late and it has an expansive atrium decorated with one of Denver’s most underrated works of art: a series of murals by favorite son Allen Tupper True. This tour comes with a few tall tales about how this overlooked masterpiece came to be.
Ray Mark Rinaldi (media@rayrinaldi.com) is a veteran arts writer and critic based in Denver.