Blueprint
DENVER ART MUSEUM
One of the most significant objects among the Denver Art Museum‘s 70,000-work collection isn’t inside the museum but the structure itself. The institution’s North Building, built in 1971, is one of the country’s first high-rise art museums–and the only completed building in North America by Italian modernist Gio Ponti, in collaboration with Denver-based James Sudler Associates.
Coinciding with the building’s 50th anniversary will be an expansion expected to finish in late 2021.
Led by Denver’s Fentress Architects and Boston-based Machado Silvetti, the renovation will include a new welcome center with a restaurant, a cafe, a conservation lab and an events space as well as new areas for the Architecture, Design and Graphics and Western American Art collections.
Even the name will change to the J. Landis and Sharon Martin Building, in recognition of the $25-million gift for the $150-million project. But two things will be carefully preserved: Ponti’s original structure and his vision of visitor access to the seventh floor’s spectacular views.
