6J The Denver Post g g Friday, October 6, 2006 7J

10 don’t-miss sights:
Building a work of art
Exploring the Frederic C. Hamilton Building, an addition to the Denver Art Museum
Follow these red dots to museum highlights
6
1
Putting it all together
“Quantum Cloud The skeleton
XXXIII” (2000),
Construction of the Hamilton
“ENGI” (2006), Tatsuo Miyajima, Anthony Gormley,
Building took
80 LED counters in mirrored circles, stainless steel,
approximately three
El Pomar Grand Atrium. This fourth floor. This
years with 200 people
wraparound installation, with its floating figure,
working on different
array of constantly changing constructed of
parts of the building
numbers, seems at one with the hundreds of
each day. Great care
architecture. interconnecting
was taken to create
rods, dramatically
and engineer a solid
anchors the tip of
structure that
the addition’s prow.
maintained the
designer’s original
concept. Erecting the
massive steel girders required
a unique system of connections
to create a supportive skeleton.
Assembling the building’s 2,750-ton steel
framework began in July 2003 and
7 required about 50,000 bolts.

2 “Snow Flurry May 14”

(1959), Alexander Calder,
painted steel and aluminum,
Ngil mask (late 1800s), Vicki & Kent Logan Atrium.
unknown Fang artist, Modern and This classic Calder mobile
wood and fiber, Daniel Contemporary activates this open space
Yohannes Gallery, fourth 4TH FLOOR art linking the third and fourth
floor. An understated floors of the modern and
African mask with 6 contemporary galleries.
elongated forms, gentle
curves and graceful
symmetry.

2
Sculpture deck
African art The skin
For its cladding, the building’s 226,000-square-foot exterior
ATRIUM 8 is sheathed with 9,000 golden-gray titanium panels that
1 change colors depending on the light and echo the earth-
7 Impressionism gallery, tone glass tiles on the museum’s existing building. The panels
The third and fourth floors will house interlock in a textured, basket-like pattern. The titanium was
3 nearly 140 works from the modern and
3 Modern and third floor. Paintings by
such masters as Claude mined in Australia, processed in Nevada, Pennsylvania and
contemporary collection, which has not Contemporary Monet and Camille Ohio, and shaped into panels in Maplewood, Minn.
"Wheat Fields" (1989), Jim been on permanent view in recent years. art Pissarro in what is sure
Dine, painted bronze with The museum is also adding a gallery for
to be one of the addition’s
patina and pigments, Vicki Oceanic art on the third floor and another
most popular spaces.
and Kent Logan Atrium, third for African art on the fourth.
floor. This 14-foot-long cast 8 3RD FLOOR
assemblage of found objects Oceanic art
is among Dine's largest works.
The second floor contains two
2ND FLOOR temporary exhibition spaces, including 9
the largest, the 11,000-square-foot
Anschutz Gallery. Given prominent
visibility on the northern side of this level Bridge to north Portraits wall, William
will be the museum's Western art building Sr. and Dorothy Harmsen
collection. A corridor takes visitors from 2ND FLOOR Gallery, second floor.
Temporary the atrium through the Western galleries A striking mix of eight
exhibition: 4 to the bridge connecting the addition to Western portraits by a
the museum's original building. variety of artists, The interior
Modern and including Charles Bird
Contemporary King and Kevin Red Star.
The unique design of the building inspired the museum’s
4 art designers, curators and educators to think outside the box
Western art when planning the interior spaces. After carefully
"Headless (mfg considering the ways visitors interact with art objects,
The first floor is the main reception area 10 they designed verticle walls to hold art and define the
portrait)" (2000), for the museum. All visitors will enter
Michael Joo, foam shapes of individual galleries, planned the galleries to
here and then either take the grand provide exciting experiences to visitors and created hands-
rubber and found doll Temporary 5 stairway in the central atrium or the on educational activities for children and adults.
heads located in the exhibition: elevators to access the galleries. The 9
Anschutz Gallery. This
Native 6,000-square-foot Gallagher Family 10
witty contemporary Gallery is located here, one of the
take-off on traditional American
museum's three temporary exhibition “Long Jakes: The Rocky
Buddhist art greets pottery spaces. Mountain Man” (1844),
Museum exhibit specialists had to use a different approach
visitors to "Radar." when hanging art in the new addition. Sloping ceilings and
Charles Deas, oil on
angled walls meant that specially made fasteners were
canvas, Dietler Gallery,
needed to keep the artwork level.
second floor. The art
museum purchased this
painting in 1999 for a
reported $2 million.

5
Temporary
"Diva" (2001), Virgil Ortiz, exhibition: Elevators
clay, paint and sinew, second Asian art Dual, custom-
floor. A standout among the Lobby Paintings Design made fasteners
more than 160 contemporary Modern and Asian
African can be bent or
American Indian works in the Museum shop Atrium Contemporary Pre-Columbian Spanish Colonial lengthened
show "Breaking the Mold." Oceanic American Indian
Temporary Western
to compensate
exhibitions Palettes Lobby Rail for odd angles
Museum shop Lobby guidance
1ST FLOOR Main entrance Bayer collection Auditorium
Bridge North building system
Main stairs through the atrium

The Frederic C. Hamilton Building, from all angles

Once the height is determined,

experts use a beam of light
to accurately place a rail
guidance system above. The
cables are adjusted at the rails
and fasteners to create a level
view of the art.

13th Avenue Prow. The most distinctive exterior element of the building
arguably is its prow, which offers a dramatic sight to motorists and
pedestrians approaching on the street from the east. It cantilevers 176
feet over West 13th Avenue at a 30-degree angle and reaches a height
of 99 feet. As might be expected, the protruding structure contains
some of the building’s most striking interior spaces, especially its tip
with a slit-shaped window.
El Pomar Grand Atrium. Serving as the core of the addition and
principal means of access to the galleries, this angled, asymmetrical
space is the buiding’s architectural centerpiece. It soars 118 feet with
a sharply sloped ceiling inset with strategically placed skylights from
top to bottom. A stairway wraps around the canyon-like space,
disappearing and reappearing beyond partition walls, creating constantly
changing vistas and spatial experiences.
Bartlit Family Sculpture Deck. The 3,650-square-foot deck, which
visitors access from the third-floor modern and contemporary galleries,
is 37 feet off the ground on the west side of the building. Besides
offering panoramic views of the Front Range, it is the home of two
major sculptures by Donald Judd and George Rickey.
“Big Sweep” (2006), Claes and Coosje van Bruggen Oldenburg,
stainless steel, aluminum and fiber-reinforced plastic, Lanny and Sharon
Martin Plaza near the entrance on the east side of the building. A
quintessential pop sculpture on a monumental scale.
Daniel Yohannes Gallery. Devoted to African art, this soaring, 2,630-
square-foot space on the fourth floor could be the most spectacular
gallery in the new building. Angled walls and ceiling planes, including
one sloped 24 degrees in one direction and 10 degrees in another,
collide in unexpected and slightly vertiginous ways.

Modeling, architecture and exhibit sources: Guadalupe Cantu/Studio Daniel Libeskind, Christina Graham and Lehlan Murray, the Denver Art Museum Image of “Wheat Fields,” Courtesy of The Denver Art Museum Photos by Glenn Asakawa | The Denver Post Text by Kyle MacMillan | The Denver Post and the Denver Art Museum Design, graphics and additional modeling by Jonathan Moreno | The Denver Post