06-01-2006

The Denver Art Museum’s new Frederic C. Hamilton wing, first announced in 1999 and designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, officially opened its doors in mid-October of this year. What will surely prove to be a landmark in the heart of the mile high city, Libeskind’s Hamilton wing is the fractured embodiment of the architectural trend to devise increasingly dramatic forms at the expense of function. The debate between form and function has always been at the heart of architectural endeavors, but with buildings like Libeskind’s it increasingly appears that function is playing a bit part to form’s looming presence. Which wouldn’t bother one so much if the building’s function was not to house and display artwork.

As a sculptural form one enters to experience unconventional and asymmetrical spaces, or as a dynamic structure to be viewed from the outside, the Hamilton building is certainly a marvel; but as an art museum, its dramatic design gives little thought to the function of the building and I fear will prove daunting for curators and tiresome for patrons.

Libeskind is best known for his commission to design the master plan for the World Trade Center reconstruction. In his Denver building, the boxes and shards that distinguish his style rise out of the ground like the volcanic force of the city’s creative powers. Like a chameleon, the structure takes on a new form — squat, disruptive, angular, linear — depending on one’s vantage point.

Hamilton Building Opening 10-07-2006

In terms of space and lines, the building’s interior is as fascinating as its exterior. The same slopes and jutting forms that are seen from the outside continue on the inside, creating an endless variety of polygonal chambers, alcoves and recesses that can be stately and dynamic in some moments but most frequently evoke the disjointed spaces of an amusement park funhouse. The lower levels, where the building is wider, prove to be more adaptable as exhibition spaces. The current temporary exhibit, Radar, works exceptionally well, the heterogeneous pluralism of contemporary art forms displayed in spaces not confined to the box shapes of normal gallery walls is appropriate and even helpful; on the other hand, the exhibition hall of Western art on the same floor, where the unconventional spaces do little to show off the collection and occasionally obstructs its view, is less successful.

In the upper levels, where the space becomes more claustophobic, moments of curatorial and archiectural harmony are harder to find. A room of Cubist paintings is at home in the sloping walls and polygonal rooms but a small grouping of impressionist works is downright horrid. The slanted walls that go off into no particular direction fail at creating the intimacy one would want to examine a trio of Degas pastel drawings.

The building does not lack all magic as an exhibition space. The curators’ placing of Antony Gormley’s “Quantum Cloud XXXIII” at the base of the long receeding space created by the prow that hangs over 13th Avenue creates a sense of infinite possibility to the frozen moment of the sculpture.

Researching the development of the building I found the term “building outside the box” was frequently invoked. Building outside the box seems like an intriguing enough concept and when form is the only consideration is likely to create spectacular constructions; but sometimes, form should follow function; and sometimes a box is not such a bad thing.

photos by Jeff Wells || courtesy Denver Art Museum

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.