Take a peek inside local landmarks

Doors Open Denver has a lot to offer for 2019: More than 50 buildings and sites that people can pop into at anytime; 59 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 reveals the intricacies of the buildings we pass by all the time — skyscrapers, churches, schools, firehouses, hospitals.

This year’s tour includes rarely opened sites and a 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.

Their inclusion in the tour reminds 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 and come of age.

Doors Open Denver, set for Sept. 21-22, comes in three categories: the open sites (O), which people can wander into for free; the insider tours (T), which require a paid signup; and the freeto-attend, commissioned art and cultural activities that tap the talent of local creatives.

Here are a few picks that stand out in the pack.

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.

The 1958 Ketchum building, at 730 Kalamath St., is an example of thin-shell concrete construction. Denver engineer Milo Ketchum specialized in the technique and designed this building to serve as an example for clients. It’s full of mid-century flourish and expansive spaces.

The sanatorium was developed in the early 1900s, on 22 acres, when Colorado’s climate and altitude made it a destination for tuberculosis sufferers. See the prominent gate and tower, Harry Potter-style library, and a mini museum with artifacts from the early 1900s. This is one of the city’s oldest nonprofits and has worked to honor

Here’s your chance to get inside this treasure designed in 1932 by Groves, a pioneer in the use of precast concrete panels.

This might be the don’t-miss attraction of the weekend, a personal tour of Denver architect Gass’ favorite buildings downtown. Gass knows more about 20th century Denver urban development than anyone else around, and he has lots of stories to share.

This pop-up plaza is at 965 Santa Fe Drive on the patio of the Center for Visual Arts, perhaps the city’s best contemporary art gallery. There will be food and drinks and a Latino heritage market, all sheltered by a temporary gazebo.

This interactive adobe build at the Center for Visual Arts is a reminder of architectural history and the work it took often by hand, to create. 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.

There’s so much public art in Denver 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.

You can wander around the lobby at just about anytime. But most of us don’t, and that’s a missed opportunity. The hotel 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.