Arts, History and Architecture

Today was our "museums' day" after having explored neighborhoods yesterday. Weather was almost too good, again, to spend most of the day inside, but it was well worth the time. We started with the new Colorado History Center - opened in 2012 and no comparison to old one. It's fantastic, multimedia (but not too much), family-friendly (but not only) and highly instructive museum, starting with a huge map on the floor of the atrium and "time machines" to move around (see pic), followed by the history of Colorado in different sections with 1:1 reconstructions, models, films and other media.


We learned a lot about new topics like "Lincoln Hills" - an Afro-American retreat in the Colorado mountains from the 1920ies to 1960ies - and about a Japanese relocation camp. Also, the Dust Bowl was not at all just a phenonemon which hit Kansas and Oklahoma - as assumed -, but also vast parts of Colorado, Texas and even New Mexico were affected. A multimedia demonstration (with sound and pictures in a cabin) was highly impressive. The Environmental Exhibit showed the effects of human hybris, settling in the mountains and woods (wild fires), water problems, bugs destroying the wood etc.

On to the Denver Art Museum across the street: spectacular architecture and equally great artwork. Main focus of the museum is contemporary art (in the new building) and Western Amerian and American Indian Art (in the connected, fortress-like old building). And, this was what we enjoyed most. We skipped the Cartier exhibition, which seemed to be a big draw, and, instead, enjoyed almost empty floors with Western and Native American Art. We especially liked the great exhibition of watercolors of William Matthews - a western painter - and enjoyed great photo opportunities from the sculpture terrace of the museum (see pic below). There are not many museums (at least as far as we know, and, being museums freaks, rarely missing one, we know quite a few) which combine art & archittecture in such a perfect and fantastic way.

The neighboring Public Library (see pic) - by famous postmodern architect Michael Graves - is another well-done example of how architecture can look like and how it can fit in with other buildings.

The 16th Street Mall shuttle bus brought us all the way to the end of the mall and we inspected Union Station inside. What a difference to how it looked when we were there last time, in 2008, and took the train to San Francisco! It's populated now, several restaurants and bars and even a hotel inside, fancy seating of all kinds in the large hall and a futuristic construction covering the tracks. A good example how urban development can look like.


Another short stop at Tattered Cover bookstore – it's great to have used and new books in the same shelf - and back to the hotel where we will be picked up at 7 pm for dinner with the group in a farm-to-table restaurant by name "Rioja" in Larimer Square. Getting hungry!