Denver Art Museum Building design architect, DAM Colorado architecture, America Arts property upgrade and addition

Denver Art Museum Building Design

DAM: Architecture in Colorado design by Fentress Architects and Machado Silvetti, USA

Dec 15, 2016

Design: Fentress Architects and Machado Silvetti, Architects

Location: Denver, Colorado, USA

image courtesy of architects

Denver Art Museum Building Design

Gio Ponti’s only building in the US, for the Denver Art Museum (DAM), will turn 50 in 2021. DAM have announced a $150 million upgrade and addition to the seven-story tower—one of the first high-rise art museums—to be completed in time to mark the special anniversary, reports the Architectural Record.

photo courtesy of Tryba Architects

Denver-based Fentress Architects and Machado Silvetti will lead the renovation project, which includes aspects of Gio Ponti’s original design that were never realized. “Ponti had planned an ellipse-shaped auditorium that did not get built,” says DAM director Christoph Heinrich.

photo by KM Newnham, courtesy Wikimedia commons

“We have an auditorium now in Daniel Libeskind’s Hamilton building, but will reintroduce that shape as a welcome and education center. It works beautifully between the zig-zagging form of Libeskind’s building and the castle-like structure of Ponti’s.” The new addition will take cues from Ponti’s design but will be smaller and more open and light-filled.

photograph © James Florio