Architecture of Denver Art Museum

Denver Art Museum
“Libeskind’s new Denver 
Art Museum is an eruption 
of hard-edged rhomboids 
that suggests gargantuan 
quartz crystals. 


This is a bold building, and it is neither an inaccessible theoretical work nor a brazen piece of entertainment, but somewhere in between.” Paul Goldberger, The New Yorker magazine.
In contrast to Libeskind’s latter experiences on the WTC project, his “wildly self-indulgent” designs for the Denver Art Museum Hamilton Building in Colorado, US are highly visible. 

Inspired by Denver’s “vitality and growth”, there was palpable excitement surrounding the project’s opening in October 2006 – not least from Libeskind whose face was plastered over all the promotional brochures. His extension to the museum is an expansion of the existing eccentric structure designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti, best known for designing Milan’s Pirelli Tower. 

As well as forming the main entrance to the entire museum complex, Libeskind’s extension houses the Modern and Contemporary art collection as well as the collection of Architecture and Design and Oceanic Art. 

What he describes as “An innovative museum for the 21st Century”, is also his first American building to be completed, using materials closely related to Ponti’s existing context (local stone) aswell as innovative new materials (titanium), which together form spaces that connect local Denver tradition to the 21st century. Libeskind’s addition is sheathed in more than 9,000 titanium panels laid