{"id":8301,"date":"2022-05-02T23:53:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T05:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=8301"},"modified":"2025-07-08T00:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T06:28:08","slug":"the-mother-and-the-whore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/02\/the-mother-and-the-whore\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mother and the Whore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last Thursday my wife Andrea Carney<\/a> and I visited the Denver Art Museum to see the homegrown exhibition on the theme of La Malinche, nearly twenty years in the making.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This was our first door-darkening since Covid-19 hit. During that time, and for three years before, the museum had undergone a major renovation. A little history\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

North and South<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Until the 2006 addition of the Hamilton Building\u2014architect Daniel Liebskind’s jagged, titanium-faced eruption on 13th Avenue, jutting in at left below\u2014DAM’s iconic profile was provided by Gio Ponti’s towering gray-glass-tile fortress, aka the North Building, which opened in 1971. In its shadow remained the South Building, looking like a dislodged blocky pedestal, which until 2018 housed a multipurpose space, a gift shop, and Palettes, a fine dining restaurant by Kevin Taylor. By chance I ate there on what I recall was Palettes’ last day before demolition: my mother Phyllis J. Hughes had given her genealogical papers to the Central Library and our organization, the Hull Family Association, hosted a luncheon there for the librarians and archivists who had facilitated accession of my mom’s collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"South<\/a>
The South Building, lower center, before it was demolished. Its white awning was for patio dining at Palettes. Behind Red Grooms\u2019s rooftop sculpture, Shoot Out<\/strong>, is the penthouse, part of the building\u2019s original structure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I call the South Building “blocky” and that’s not necessarily a dis. In 1948 the museum bought a building at Acoma and 14th Avenue across from Civic Center. Architect Burnham Hoyt was tapped to renovate it into the Schleier Memorial Gallery, its features being “hailed in the national press as innovations in museum architecture” including “big display windows that could attract passersby in much the same way as downtown store windows.” It was part of museum director Otto Bach’s “campaign to make art a ‘part of everyday life.\u2019\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This design was replicated in the South Building, which was built in 1954 from the ground up, with a skin of neutral limestone. Art historian Neil Harris writes about the museum after the 1956 opening of its Asian collection in another acquired and renovated building:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding virtue in necessity the Denver Post<\/em> contrasted the “modern, airy, flexible and compact” character of the museum with the “mausoleums of art, vast pillared tombs patterned after New York’s Metropolitan, where you can walk miles before finding what you really want to see.”<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The South Building is no more. In place of its limestone is glass\u2014a “glass drum,” as Westword<\/em> writer Michael Paglia aptly describes<\/a> it\u2014that includes a welcome center, caf\u00e9, restaurant, and huge event space. The new construction is 50,000 square feet in size. It’s stunning. Early renderings of the renovation and reimagining depict<\/a> visitors using a feature of Ponti’s original design, which contrasts beautifully with his very vertical edifice: its horiz-oblong entryway, which never was really employed. Andrea and I walked up its ramp (or bridge); alas, it is used only as an auxiliary ingress for groups. To my mind a barred entrance is like a dry reflecting pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Martin<\/a>
Bridge leads visitors to what was the front door of Ponti\u2019s North Building (now known as the Martin Building), except that it is barred but for groups. The new \u201cglass drum,\u201d known as the Sie Welcome Center, can be seen behind it. (Image: DAM Press Room)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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