This building has caused quite a bit of controversy regarding the timeliness of Xcel moving to a new building during a recession and the unusual visual treatment. I watched this building being erected every two weeks as I provide chair massage in a room that overlooks the site. I am on the 23rd floor, so it was a great view and learning experience. Sadly, most of my pictures did not come out because of glare from the glass. The building got behind schedule, so two cranes were brought in to get back on track. That was very interesting to watch the crane operators move the materials like an aerial ballet.
"We don't usually talk about still objects — paintings, sculptures or buildings — in the same way we debate motion pictures. Art is art, film is film, especially from a critical perspective.
But sometimes the language of one medium helps get at the true artfulness of another. And stealing a few references from the movie world seems to make particular sense in sizing up 1800 Larimer, the 22-story architectural puzzle emerging on the border of Denver's financial district and Lower Downtown.
An odd collage of shapes, colors and surfaces, the new building is as much a lightning rod for sharp opinions as a Quentin Tarantino flick. Even people who love skyscrapers, and who desperately want to appreciate infill downtown, find it disturbing.
And no wonder. The structure — with giant multistory patches of reflective dark glass appliqued randomly about its traditional glass and concrete bands — is intentionally jarring. If human beings are programmed to love symmetry and order, then this building's purposeful syncopation, the mix of styles at its base, body and roof, can be irritatingly cryptic.
Passersby stop and stare, trying to make sense of its rhythm. They just can't get it.
I've tried to like this building too. And it has been very hard.
No doubt, its technology is as impressive as the latest sci-fi hit; 1800 Larimer is cutting-edge green. From the space-age flat, white roof, linked to the building by inverted triangles, to the planned 17,000 square-foot, open-air garden terrace, the building is designed to save, conserve and recycle at warp speed, making it a swell host for Xcel Energy, its main tenant.
The architects at Denver's RNL design have loaded it with visual delights, too. The parking garage, on the northwest side, is a wonder, rising a humble two stories above ground, where it might easily have come up to a monstrous five or six. The first floor (there are more below ground) is clad in the same dark glass applied to the facades; from the street the garage looks more like a LoDo nightclub than the clunky set of exposed concrete ramps nearby buildings offer.
Continuity of place
It is sited particularly well, on a corner that needed a little lift. A good chunk of architecture at 18th and Larimer streets extends the shape of Denver's core in just the right way, nudging it north and west, and inspiring more density in a direction where there is space and demand.
Supporting all that is the building's sincerely modern lobby. Cantilevered stainless-steel blades jut out over 30-foot walls of frameless structural glass. The interior is coated in textured tiles creating a space both sparse and warm.
And there is a lovely little trick here. In front of the exterior glass walls sit small beds of polished black rocks, each planted with a single pear tree. Then, aligned on the interior side of the glass, are similar beds of rocks and trees. The mirroring evaporates the transition from inside to outside.
But are those details reason enough to like a building that is wildly, intentionally hard to appreciate on its surface? Craftsmanship may make a violent Martin Scorsese movie a classic, but can it save a tall building?
To be honest, every significant new project brags of its green virtues these days, and touting them is like boasting that you don't beat your cat. No one gets a medal for doing what's right.
Ultimately, a great parking garage is most valuable to drivers looking for a spot, and any tall building situated on that same corner would have reshaped downtown.
The lobby improves the lives of those standing inside, not those driving south on Interstate 25, holding a rubbernecking stare at the odd Rubik's Cube that is 1800 Larimer. This building is a traffic hazard.
Still, at the risk of piling on, there is one more argument to be made for the benefit of 1800 Larimer, and it starts here: People can't stop looking at it.
And this is where the language of film really comes in handy.
Folks like to watch this building, taking in its stories, sizing up its frames, trying to figure out how it has been plotted, wondering where its script will go next. In a sense, 1800 Larimer unfolds cinematically, with every random side a sequel.
Most buildings are less daringly dynamic. The majority of modern towers let you see the beginning and end of their tale with a quick glance. You can take in their geometry, their forward-thinking intentions, in a second.
Ornate buildings are the same, really. Those beaux arts beauties and neoclassical hits wear their respect for the past on their sleeves. Even postmodern marvels that mix the old and new, like the Denver Public Library, do little to tax our perceptions. We get it; they're a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll.
Those buildings are more like movie stills than movies. The initial experience of them is wonderful, or it isn't, but it is fleeting. Next building, please.
1800 Larimer demands your time, and there is power in that. The people in the No. 38 RTD bus who pass by every day, the Xcel workers who set their kids' photos on their desks: For them, this building will continue to unreel for years. It might get boring over time, but it will be a long time.
Of course, all this raises one final question: If 1800 Larimer is a movie, then is it a good movie or a bad one?
The envelope, please
Here's why we nominate it for an Academy Award: Because it tries so hard. Because it is high-tech and tenant-friendly and a great place to lease space. Its floors are flexible, it promises individualized climate controls, a gym and great views, and will be such a pleasant place to work that developers are talking about a 6 percent to 16 percent productivity gain for people who use it.
There's a great architectural tradition in honoring the needs of workers. Frank Lloyd Wright taught us about it in 1936 when he designed the landmark Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine, Wis. The building is as beautiful and detailed on the inside as it is on the outside, and workers felt valued. The builders of New York's World Trade Center, who maximized views and speeded up elevators, reminded us of the same virtues three decades later.
But here is why the Oscar goes elsewhere: because tall buildings owe as much to the community as they do their tenants. Movies are seen only by those who go into the theater, while skyscrapers project themselves far and wide. Like old drive- ins, anybody who motors by catches a glimpse, like it or not.
Just as drive-ins avoid X-rated scenes or extreme violence, buildings have a responsibility to resist shocking us out of context. Like public art, they have to make some concession to their communal consumption or face disdain.
They have to be attractive, not like a movie, but like a movie star. We can't just be compelled to gawk at surface design that tries to be different; we have to see a meaningful idea of beauty we can all share.
The end.
Ray Mark Rinaldi: 303-954-1540 or rrinaldi@denverpost.com"
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