There are certain places around town that force me to "refall" in love with Denver each time I see them: Driving through the mousetrap traveling south and seeing the skyline framed by the I-70 overpass; the way LoDo looks on the drive down 20th every Saturday for breakfast at Snooze; the way downtown looks from the top of the steps at the Museum of Natural History, or whatever they are calling it nowadays; the dancing figures outside DCTC and the whole DCTC complex with the plexiglass arch overhead; the bear outside the convention center; the "devil-horse" at DIA; the entire metro area from the vantage point of Carpenters Peak in Roxborough Park; and especially the art museum/library complex between 14th and 13th. I get happy just thinking about it.
Kathie and I spent her birthday there last Wednesday. We started the celebration off by not going to the Y to work out. Instead, we spent a lazy morning reading the paper, watching ESPN, and drinking Snooze's Guatemalan coffee, French press grind. If for no other reason, the coffee at Snooze is worth the trip to Larimer and Park Avenue for breakfast.
A couple of leisurely showers later, we head off to Palette's, the Kevin Taylor restaurant inside the museum. Lunch there is a special treat. It is a sunny room punctuated by significant pieces of art and banks of sunny windows. We order a calamari appetizer to share and a split of Gruet champagne from New Mexico. (Wine Tip Alert: Gruet from Albuquerque is, in our humble opinion, the best sparkling wine in the country for the price. No contest.) The Calamari is huge with a light tempura batter, drizzled with two differently seasoned Aiolis. It is right up there with the calamari at Luca d'Italia, my squid standard. Kathie orders a mac and cheese for her main dish that could feed a family of four; I order the tuna, lightly seared--at the risk of sounding like a food critic straining for descriptors--with sauteed bok choy (unbelievably wonderful) and a ginger flavored rice to die for. Bones on 7th and Grant has my vote for the best lunch food in town, but this place might be better!
Of course, it helps that after lunch you get to go into the museum without having to leave the building. I love this place. I loved it when it was just the one magnificent building. I used to get my humanities students to go on scavenger hunts there and meditate in front of the Shiva on the fifth floor. Kathie and I would drag our children there maybe once a month. Hey, it was, next to Bears Badges, the cheapest family outing in town.
I loved the surprises the main building offered. You'd be getting off the elevator on the fourth floor psyched to see all the European masters and notice the front range framed in a skinny horizontal picture window right in front of a row of benches. Other surprising glimpses lurked around every corner.
I don't know enough about architecture (other than the fact that I love to think about it) to tell you if the new building is "better" than the first. I suspect it isn't, but it is definitely more playful. I think that idea of playfulness is one of the qualities I look for in architecture. I am reminded of Brian Fuentes' "Aristos" where he talks so beautifully about building snow forts with Tolgay Hasenfuss (I think that was his name) when he was a kid. He loved the nooks and crannies, the tunnels, the little hiding places that all of us can remember loving when we were young: Back yard tents, cuddling up in sleeping bags, hiding behind our blankies, playing in refrigerator boxes (boy does that date me!). All that stuff.
Kathie and I once went to Taleisin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's complex outside Phoenix, and we were both struck by the snowfort-like playfulness of the place. Nooks and crannies. Tunnels. Arches. Isolated rooms for hanging out. Just the kind of place you would design if you were 12 and a genius. In addition to the playfulness of the place, there is the marriage of the manmade and nature, the juxtaposition of texture and light that arrests your attention every time you turn around.
All of those qualities are in the new section of the art museum. Ignore for a second that the neighborhood will have to grow a little to live up to the standards of this new building. The walk across the second floor bridge from old to new does a nice job of setting the mood. The mountains hover over the neighborhoods to the west and the eastern view showcases the public art that is slowly but surely taking over the library/art museum plaza. I love the broom and dust pan on 13th street and the cow on top of the old building just off the bridge. And there is the huge chair with the cow at the library entrance. Don't forget the massive and collage-like library building itself. Of course, I've never seen a library I didn't fall in love with.
My favorite thing to do in the new building is to stand at the bottom floor and look up the staircase that seems to lurch up the four floors to the top, the risers appearing and disappearing from view. The exhibits themselves are interesting, but not breathtaking. There is no MOMA moment where you walk around a corner and all of a sudden "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" spreads out in front of you. At places like MOMA or the National Gallery of Art in D.C., you spend most of your time weeping; at DAM you spend most of your time smiling. I mean how can you see a vibrating table covered in hard caked soil and withering grass entitled "Vibrating Field," and not smile a little bit. And of course there is the cool red nook with all the black frolicking foxes.
That is the thing I love about this place. The building is a constant delight and, at least in my opinion, a better work of art than the things inside. I'm not sure that is a problem, but if it is it will surely be corrected by time.
Spend an afternoon at the museum. Have lunch at Palettes. You will thank me for it later.
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