Central Denver

Civic Center area
Central Business District
Larimer Square Historic District
Lower Downtown Historic District
Auraria area

Originally, a tiny business district and residences occupied today's urban core. As the city grew, much of the pioneer residential area was transformed into commercial or government buildings.

Civic Center Area

Roughly Grant to Elati Streets between Colfax and Tenth Avenues

HD-6 Civic Center Historic District

Roughly Grant to Delaware Streets between Colfax and Thirteenth Avenues, NHL

Mayor Robert W. Speer enlisted Charles Mulford Robinson, a New York planner and author of Modern Civic Art, or, the City Made Beautiful (1903), to do the initial 1906 plan for a government office park. Robinson used the state capitol as the eastern anchor of a civic mall for city, state, and federal buildings wrapped around a central park. Sculptor Frederick MacMonnies refined the Civic Center plan while working on his Pioneer Fountain (1911), at the northwest corner of West Colfax Avenue and Broadway. He introduced the semicircles formed by curving West Colfax and West Fourteenth Avenues between Broadway and Bannock and placed the City and County Building on Bannock opposite the capitol, anchoring the western end of the civic mall. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. also contributed a plan (1912), as did Chicago city planner Edward H. Bennett (1917) and Denver landscape architect Saco R. DeBoer. Today's Civic Center incorporates ideas from all of these planners.

Civic Center's north-south axis terminates in two classical structures inspired by the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. At the north end, the Voorhies Memorial (1919, William E. Fisher and Arthur A. Fisher), 100 West Colfax Avenue, is a copy of the exposition's Water Gateway. An arcade of Turkey Creek sandstone curves around a pool with twin fountains of cherubs riding sea lions, designed by Denver sculptor Robert Garrison. In the lunettes of the arcade are murals by Allen Tupper True depicting bison and elk in Neoclassical style. Banker and mining entrepreneur John H.P. Voorhies, who lived across the street, funded the memorial.

The Greek Theater and Colonnade of Civic Benefactors (1919, Willis A. Marean and Albert J. Norton), West Fourteenth Avenue and Acoma Street, echoes and balances the Voorhies Memorial at the opposite end of the north-south axis. Edward H. Bennett, the protégé and successor of Chicago's famed master architect of the 1893 Exposition, Daniel Burnham, proposed this arrangement despite local critics who complained, "Why the hell does Denver need a Greek theater? We ain't got that many Greeks here!" The theater's arc responds to the curving wings of the Voorhies Memorial and is constructed of the same Turkey Creek sandstone. Two Allen Tupper True murals, Trapper and Prospector, depict pioneer types in forest settings. The theater's north side is terraced down into an open semicircular arena.

Plans for a sunken sculpture garden at the center of Civic Center Park solidified around two bronze statues by Denverite Alexander Phimister Proctor, Broncho Buster (1920) and On the War Trail (1922). Civic Center Park was restored and enhanced in 1991 by Long Hoeft Architects and again in the early 2000s by landscape architect Tina Bishop, who oversaw a $2 million facelift. The Civic Center Conservancy, a private nonprofit support group whose aim is to maintain and enhance Civic Center, has funded major improvements since its creation in 2004. Civic Center is the heart of Denver's park system and a relic of the standard Progressive-Era prescription for improving crowded, ugly urban cores. In pronouncing Civic Center a National Historic Landmark in 2012, US secretary of the interior Ken Salazar called it the best-preserved US example of City Beautiful planning for an urban core.

Colorado State Capitol

1886–1908, Elijah E. Myers, Frank E. Edbrooke. East Colfax to East Fourteenth Avenues between Lincoln and Grant Streets, HD-6

At the eastern edge of Civic Center, this cruciform four-story building culminates in a gold dome. The brick building is faced with Colorado gray granite from the Aberdeen Quarry in Gunnison County. Similar symmetrical bays characterize all four sides, with a west entrance portico overlooking Civic Center. Triangular pediments with bas-relief sculptures top triple-arched central entrances on each side. Lighter, cheaper cast iron that matches the granite color is used for the three cylindrical stages of the dome. Colorado mining magnates donated twenty-four-carat gold leaf for the 272-foot-high dome, and the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company donated a 2013 replacement.

Elijah Myers also designed state capitols for Idaho, Michigan, Texas, and Utah. As with his other statehouses, Myers gave Colorado's a Neoclassical design of Renaissance origins. The Board of Capitol Managers dismissed Myers in 1889 to save money. Denver architect Frank E. Edbrooke, who had placed second in the original architectural competition, completed the structure, basically following Myers's 1886 design. Edbrooke substituted gold for copper on the dome and dropped the allegorical female figure with which Myers had crowned it. Apparently the legislature, after considerable study of models in various states of dress, could not agree on which was the shapeliest. A major restoration of the dome and relaying of its gold skin, completed in 2014, did not include the forgotten lady.

The interior features Beulah red marble and Colorado Yule marble wainscoting and brass fixtures. Of 160 rooms, the most noteworthy are the Old Supreme Court chambers, the senate and house chambers, and the central rotunda, whose first-floor walls display murals (1938) by Colorado's premier muralist, Allen Tupper True, with captions from Colorado poet laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferril. Fire safety improvements evolved into a major restoration in the early 2000s, in which a new attic museum was installed, showcasing the building's history. On the east side of the capitol is the Closing Era, a bronze Indian and buffalo crafted for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition by Preston Powers, who once taught in Denver. The grounds were designed by Colorado's pioneer landscape architect, Reinhard Schuetze. A $17 million restoration of the dome by Quinn Evans Architects with Humphries Poli Architects, completed in 2014, included the new gold coat.

Colorado State Museum

1913, Frank E. Edbrooke. 1987 restoration and renovation, Pahl-Pahl-Pahl Architects. Fourteenth Avenue, southeast corner of Sherman Street, HD-6

For the stately museum on the south side of the capitol, Edbrooke used Colorado Yule marble on a Gunnison granite base in a Neoclassical style, echoing the capitol. As this building shows, Edbrooke had made the leap from nineteenth-century romantic styles to early-twentieth-century Neoclassicism. Richard Brettell, in his book Historic Denver: The Architects and the Architecture, 1858–1893 (1973), wrote of Edbrooke's final major edifice: "The building is architecturally pure and its imagery exudes a hardened pomp and grandeur. Its memorial, almost funereal appearance is appropriate both because it is a museum — a historical society — and because it was Edbrooke's self-consciously last building." Pahl-Pahl-Pahl Architects of Denver restored the edifice for use by the Colorado State Legislature in 1987. The Colorado Historical Society, re-branded History Colorado in 2009, is now located at 1200 Broadway in an office, library, and museum known as the History Colorado Center (2012, Tryba Architects).

State Office Building

1921, William N. Bowman. 1985 restoration, Urban Design Group. 201 East Colfax Avenue, northeast corner of Sherman Street, HD-6

Of a half dozen twentieth-century state office buildings clustered around the capitol, this is one of the finest. A Renaissance Revival palace guarded by twin bronze lions sculpted by Robert Garrison, it has an exterior of Cotopaxi granite and Colorado Yule marble. The exquisite interior features a black-and- white marble checker-floored central court, ivory-colored marble walls, and bronze fixtures under a stained glass skylight. After a narrow escape from the wrecking ball, a $4 million restoration preserved this classic as offices for the Colorado Department of Education and the State Library.

Denver Public Library

1955, Burnham Hoyt, William E. Fisher, and Arthur A. Fisher. 1995 addition, Michael Graves and Klipp Colussy Jenks DuBois. 10 West Fourteenth Avenue Parkway, northwest corner of Broadway, HD-6

On the north side of this full-block complex, the 1955 four-story Burnham Hoyt Library subtly plays on classical composition, using two-story window bands to represent a glazed colonnade and third-story fenestration arranged like a frieze. Its semicircular two-story bay overlooks Civic Center.

Such refinements deferring to the Neoclassicism of Civic Center were lost on Michael Graves, the famous Princeton, New Jersey, postmodernist who, with the Denver firm of Brian Klipp, produced the seven-story addition attached to the south side of the original building. This addition tripled the size of the library, creating a depository for over 1 million books, 2 million government documents, and a cornucopia of special collections. The addition's massive size is made visually smaller by breaking it into a variety of rectangles, colors, cylinders, and towers. Copper sheaths the domed entry pavilion of the children's library and serves as accent trim elsewhere on the exterior.

Graves used clearly articulated masses that express their functions. His drum-like rotunda houses the first-floor reference room, the third-floor periodicals room, and the fifth-floor Western History and Genealogy Department. The latter has a superb collection of Denver, Colorado, and Rocky Mountain region books, manuscripts, photos, art, maps, architectural renderings, and multiple other resources. This distinctive drum, Graves's signature shape, is centered in the set-back rectangular massing of the south elevation. Here Graves comes closest to Neoclassical harmony with a parade of columns along West Thirteenth Avenue. German limestone from the fossil-rich Solnhofen quarries covers the south facade in a creamy color that matches the Indiana limestone skin of Hoyt's 1955 library on the north side. Other elevations are clad in red and green cast stone that emphasizes the geometrical shapes of a structure local supervising architect Brian Klipp called "classically contemporary."

Graves excelled as an interior designer, using warm, golden maple for interior paneling, shelves, and furnishings as well as for his custom chairs, desks, and lamps in this eye-catching edifice that many find to be library heaven.

City and County Building

1932, Allied Architects, Robert K. Fuller. 1437 Bannock Street, southwest corner of West Colfax Avenue, HD-6

Balancing the Colorado State Capitol to complete a dominant east-west axis for Civic Center Park, this monument to Mayor Speer's City Beautiful was part of the initial 1906 Robinson plan but materialized slowly on its full-block site. The design was refined and implemented by a coalition of thirty-nine leading locals organized as Allied Architects, led by Roland L. Linder and Robert K. Fuller. The Neoclassical facade centers on three-story Corinthian travertine columns atop a grand entry staircase. Curving wings resemble outstretched arms reaching toward the capitol or, some say, toward taxpaying citizens.

Although Cotopaxi Colorado granite forms the base and Colorado travertine is used for the columns and interior, the upper walls are Stone Mountain, Georgia, granite, with fleur de pêche marble inserts. Mayor Speer's widow, Kate, donated the gold eagle and carillon clock tower that cap this handsome city hall in his memory. The slender bell tower and the building's low profile preserve mountain views, Denver's signature attraction.

Tremendous bronze doors in the entry portico open to an interior featuring eleven varieties of marble, with Colorado travertine paneling the main corridors. A $10 million 1991–92 refurbishing brightened the interior and restored some features, including the grand lobby, Allen Tupper True's mural The Miners' Court, and Gladys Caldwell Fisher's bas-relief, Montezuma and the Animals. The most impressive interior spaces are the fourth-floor City Council chambers and the main entry hall, with a 1993 collage by Denver artist Susan Cooper depicting Denver landmarks. Busts of Mayor Robert W. Speer and landscape architect/city planner Saco R. DeBoer honor two key players in the building's history.

Carnegie Main Library–McNichols Building

1910, Albert Randolph Ross. 2010 renovation, Humphries Poli Architects. 144 West Colfax Avenue, HD-6

Denver's first freestanding library is a Neoclassical extension of the north wing of the City and County Building. It was to be paired with an extension of the art museum's south wing, but the art museum was eventually built on the other side of West Fourteenth Avenue. Fourteen Corinthian columns front this Greek temple in gray Turkey Creek sandstone on a base of Pikes Peak granite. This library pioneered an open stacks system later adopted by many other institutions and also first housed the Denver Public Library's superb Western History and Genealogy Department.

After the central library moved across Civic Center to its 1955 Burnham Hoyt building, conversion of the old library to other city offices led to many unfortunate "upgrades." Renamed for Mayor William H. McNichols Jr. and his brother, Governor Stephen McNichols, this Greek temple is being restored for arts and special events.

1. Byers-Evans House Museum

1883. 1898 addition. 1989 restoration, Long Hoeft Architects. 1310 Bannock Street, northeast corner of West Thirteenth Avenue, NR, HD-6

A rare remnant of the residential district that once flourished in what is now Civic Center, this two-story Italianate style brick residence shares the block with the north half of the Denver Art Museum. William Newton Byers, founding editor of the Rocky Mountain News, built the house and lived here until 1889 when it became the family home of William Gray Evans, son of Colorado territorial governor John Evans. Evans doubled the size with an 1898 two-story south addition, with an entry hall, a library, two bathrooms and two bedrooms, a maid's room, and a sitting room. Inside, rich, dark interior colors complement the glossy woodwork. In 1981 the Evans family bequeathed the house to the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado). Restored in 1989 as a house museum containing Evans family furnishings, its exhibits focus on Denver history in general as well as on the Byers and Evans clans.

2. Evans School

1904, David W. Dryden. 1115 Acoma Street, northwest corner of West Eleventh Avenue, NR, HD-6

Designed by a prominent Denver school architect, this three-story red brick school exemplifies the Classical Revival style with its pilasters, Ionic columns, and pedimented portico with neocolonial accents, such as the large central copper-clad cupola school bell. All four elevations present detailed Neoclassical facades that might be mistaken for a main entrance. Back in 1904, the Rocky Mountain News reported, "The building cost $130,000 and is said to be the most modern and best equipped school building in the West and one of the finest in the United States." Named for territorial governor John Evans, it served the public for sixty-nine years as an elementary school, a junior high school, and one of Denver's first schools for the deaf, blind, and physically handicapped. As enrollment diminished in the early 1970s, the school district closed the building and sold it to a private party. Since its closing, the Evans School has remained vacant awaiting a new fate. Recent exterior restoration has kindled hopes for a new chapter for the old school.

3. Ten-Winkle Apartments and Carpenter Gothic Houses

ca. 1893 apartments, Herman Ten-Winkle. 2005 restoration, Humphries Poli Architects. 404–10 West Twelfth Avenue, ca. 1885 houses, Herman Ten-Winkle. 2001 restoration, Blue Sky Studio. 1173–79 Delaware Street, HD-6

These rare surviving examples of early modest, middle-class cottages were built by a Dutch immigrant. The tiny Carpenter Gothic cottages initially housed the Ten-Winkle family and a family of renters. Ten-Winkle built the two-story brick fourplex at 404–10 West Twelfth Avenue a few years later.

4. Denver US Mint

1906, James Knox Taylor, with Gordon, Tracy, and Swarthout. 1987 addition, Rogers-Nagel-Langhart. 320 West Colfax Avenue, NR, HD-6