Miesian...
Mile High Center model
Photos © 2011 Alan Golin Gass, FAIA
The original model for Denver’s first skyscraper, the Miesian-style
Mile High Center, completed by I. M. Pei & Associates in 1956.
In this model you can see the tapestry-like interplay of the white enamel
panels with the dark aluminum bands on the Mile High Tower. To the
left of the model is a four-story renovated bank and on the right is the
two-story, barrel-roofed Transportation Building.
September 25th, 2011 / 2 Comments » / by Alan G. Gass
Petroleum Club
The Meisian-style Petroleum Club Building designed by
Charles Strong in 1957. Charles Strong is famous locally
as the architect of the Art Deco Poet’s Row.
The historic building has seen some changes in recent history,
the sun screens and the red spear going up the side. Compare
to this 1957 Denver Post photo.
September 22nd, 2011 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Webb & Knapp ad
1959 Webb & Knapp ad from the state centennial insert in the Denver Post.
All I.M. Pei related Denver developments. From the top, Mile High Center,
The Hilton Hotel and Zeckendorf Plaza.
March 23rd, 2011 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Auraria Library
Entranceway to the Miesian Auraria Library, designed 1974 by world famous architect
Helmut Jahn.
The building is currently in danger of being lost to insensitive additions. Let us hope
cooler heads prevail!
Louvered windows and radial corner.
July 29th, 2010 / No Comments » / by Tom Lundin
Curtain wall
One last curtain-wall building photo from downtown…
The famous Miesian Mile High Tower, part of the Mile High
Plaza designed 1956 by I.M. Pei and Henry Cobb. The plaza
is now incorporated into Philip Johnson’s Norwest Plaza.
July 27th, 2010 / 1 Comment » / by Tom Lundin
Denver Club Building
Miesian design by Raymond Harry Ervin, 1954.
November 17th, 2009 / No Comments » / by Paul Schutt
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
