Search Results for "bank"
First National Bank
One of Denver’s earlier skyscrapers, the Formalist First National
Bank Building.
Designed 1958 by Raymond Harry Ervin, the same architect who
designed the Art Deco Harry Huffman Mansion from the post
below.
July 26th, 2010 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Sculptured relief
Aluminum sculptured relief above the entranceway of the First National Bank building.
The bank was designed 1957 by Raymond Harry Ervin and is now called 621 17th Street.
May 19th, 2010 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Mod bank building in Aurora
This modernist bank on Colfax in Aurora probably dates to the early 1950s.
The umbrella shaped columns (or trumpets), are reminescent of the motif used by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Johnson Wax Building from 10 or 15 years previous to this building.
April 2nd, 2010 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Tile detail
Tile detail from the mid-century modern bank on Colfax that later became Video One. The building is getting a redo, this tile is now gone.
March 4th, 2010 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
First National Bank building
First National Bank building, designed by Raymond Harry Ervin, 1958.
November 17th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Paul Schutt
Key Savings and Loan
Key Savings and Loan Bank, organic design by Charles Deaton 1965-67.
Located on S. Broadway in Englewood.
Deaton also the designed the famous Sculptured House of Gennessee, which has many similar features and details.
November 15th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Denver’s First Skyscraper: Mile High Center
The Mile High Tower, at 23 stories tall, was the first skyscraper designed for Denver, in 1952. A part of the three building Mile High Center complex, completed 1956, it was an the first large project of world renowned architect I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb.
I.M. Pei is famous for glass structures like the Louvre Pyramid in Paris and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and the Brutalist design of the Nation Center of Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
Pei, a Chinese-American, was a student of Walter Gropius at Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he later became an Assistant Professor.
In 1955, he became Director of Architecture for William Zeckendorf’s Webb and Knapp real estate development corporation.
Mile High Tower still survives from the original Mile High Center complex, which also included an open arcade with benchs, trees, and a trout pool, an exhibition pavilion with shops, the four-story remodeled bank building next door, and a two-story barrel-vault structure with a stainless steel roof.
The Mile High Center was considered a Miesian design, after architect Mies van der Rohe. Van der Rohe had been designing structures in Chicago, such as his famous Lake Shore Drive Apartments, that were similar rectangular boxes sitting on columns, with glass curtain walls and a glass-enclosed first-story lobby setback from these columns to create an open arcade.
When Mile High Center was completed in 1956, the Webb & Knapp firm were also in the process of building Denver’s Court House Plaza, often referred to as Zeckendorf Plaza. This design also incorporated public space and for this design an even more ambitious hyperbolic parabaloid.
The barrel-vault structure originally contained a restaurant named The Matchless, named after the famous Leadville mine owned by Baby Doe Tabor.
Drawing of the Mile High Center barrel vault.
In 1984, another world famous architect, Philip Johnson, completed One United Bank Center, later called Norwest Plaza (and usually referred to as the Cash Register building, or the Mailbox). This included an atrium that spanned Broadway and swallowed up much of Pei’s plaza design. Here you can see Mile High Tower struggling to peek out of Norwest Plaza, the barrel-vault now gone.
Denver Skyline 1959: D&F Clocktower, Denver Club Building, First National Bank, Brown Palace West, Mile High Tower
August 30th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by Tom Lundin
