Colorado Seen 01/2012
DENVER BUILDS n ALSO: PAINT MINES
From the Editor As often happens, I’ve found an unintentional theme in this month’s stories. Each explores the creation of fascinating structures. In Denver, humans are adding to the skyline. Near the Great Plains town of Calhan, nature is subtracting from the skyline. In each case, the result is wonderful forms, space and light. On another note, I’m gratified to report that ColoradoSeen has won five awards for the issues of 2011. In the Best of Photojournalism contest, we have been cited for Best Use of Photography by an Electronic Publication; Best Magazine Cover; and Best Magazine Illustrative Story. In the Pictures of the Year competition at the University of Missouri, we won second place in Best Series or Special Section, for our series on Junior ROTC cadets titled High School Soldiers. Links to the awards can be found on our website.
Colorado Seen
An internet image magazine Editor & Publisher Andrew Piper
We welcome comments and letters. Submit them to: coloradoseen@comcast.net To submit work or story ideas for consideration, send an e-mail to: coloradoseen@comcast.net If you would like to advertise in ColoradoSeen, send an e-mail to coloradoseen@comcast.net for information on rates and interactive links. Copyright © 2012 ColoradoSeen
On the cover: Light and shade on the new Ralph L. Carr Justice Center echo the form of Colorado’s tallest building, Republic Plaza, built in 1984.
Put Colorado on your wall
Prints of pictures appearing in ColoradoSeen are available for purchase. Just click this ad.
From above, it looks like one more eroded gully in the Colorado
plains, but beneath the surface, Native Americans discovered. . .
. . .a
Stained red, gold, and purple by mineral deposits, the white clays and sandstones of the Calhan Paint Mine formations really were mined for war paint and pottery by Native American tribes.
paintmine
STORY & Photos by Andy Piper
W
War paint in the raw, the pigmented sandstone of the Calhan Paint Mines can be collected with a fingertip. At right, all three colors coexist in a 30-foot spire formed by selective erosion around a protective cap rock of harder stone. 8
hen the first Spanish explorers of the southwestern U.S. named a great river, and the region where it rose, “Colorado” — they weren’t kidding. Scratch Colorado pretty much anywhere and you’ll find color. Even under the pastoral farmlands and ranches of the Great Plains. The Calhan Paint Mines are one such scratch, an eroded gully south of the town for which they are named. And they really have been mined for their colorful clays and pigments, for thousands of years. Both Native Americans and European settlers have excavated color from the site. The Paint Mines have been formed
Amid a weird landscape of hoodoos, also formed by selective erosion around hard cap rocks, a hiker searches for one of four geocaches — landmarks identified by GPS coordinates — within the Paint Mines Interpretive Park.
Denver COLO RADO
Limon
Calhan
Paint Mines Interpretive Park
Colorado Springs
Red and yellow mineral deposits stripe the white Dawson Formation sandstone on a gully wall in the Calhan Paint Mines. On private land throughout the 20th century, the formation is now a public El Paso County park.
Sunlit hoodoos silhouette Robin Vermande of Victor, Colorado, as she takes a snapshot in the depths of the formation. 13
Fallen caprocks cover an eerie landscape once erosion has dissolved their supporting hoodoos and spires, leaving painted badlands.
by erosion of a conglomerate surface layer over a soft layer of Dawson Formation sandstone.
T
he harder conglomerate rock broke into chunks, and continued erosion of the soft underlayer between these protective cap rocks has formed narrow microcanyons, badlands, hoodoos and spires, tinted red, yellow, purple and brown by absorbed iron and selenium compounds. Today, the Paint Mines are contained in an interpretive natural history park operated by El Paso County. 750 acres of paths and grassland surround roughly 30 acres of the most impressive geologic formations. n 14
Small pebbles form microhoodoos on a lump of sandstone as hikers explore the rim of the Paint Mines.
. . .That sees beyond the years, thine alabaster from America The Beautiful, written by Katherine Lee Bates
18
cities gleam, undimmed by human tears. in 1893 at Colorado Springs, 30 miles west of the Calhan Paint Mines.
At left: At the mouth of the gully, in an area mostly unstained by mineral deposits, the Dawson Arkose sandstone gleams a pure alabaster white. Above: Imprinted in sandstone softened by spring rains, the hoofprint of a pronghorn becomes a temporary fossil — at least until the next storm. 19
20
On a spring afternoon, local teens walk the western rim of the Calhan Paint Mines. n
21
DENVER’S CHANGING ARCHITECTURE
Dawn light catches the facade of the Ralph L. Carr Justice Center, due to open in 2013 as new home to the Colorado Supreme Court. (Fentress Architects)
Red Rocks Amphitheater Visitors Center. Sink Combs Dethlefs, 2002
24
STORY & Photos by Andy Piper
T
he Denver area has seen an explosion of dramatic new buildings in the past decade. The majority have been governmentfunded projects, notably the creation of an entire new medical school campus for the University of Colorado on the grounds surrounding the Veteran’s Hospital in Aurora, and the continued development of the museum, library and government complex surrounding Civic Center Plaza, anchored by City Hall, the State Capitol, Gio Ponti’s 1971 Denver Art Museum North Wing, At right, Denver’s iconic 1910 D & F tower, in background, now shares Arapahoe Street with the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences highrise. Carney Architects/HKS Architects, 2010 25
To make room for the new Carr justice center up the street, the Colorado History Museum moved into a new building April 26. Tryba Architects, 2012
The Children’s Hospital, Aurora, Colorado. Zimmer Gunsul Frasca, 2007
and Michael Graves’ 1996 Central Library expansion. But there have been new private commercial structures as well, particularly new hotel towers to serve the Colorado Convention Center, expanded 2004.
O
n the grounds of the former Fitzsimons Army Hospital in suburban 28
Aurora, whose massive main building was completed in 1941 and taken out of service in 1999, a whole new medical complex has arisen as the Anschutz Medical Campus. This comprises a new home for the Children’s Hospital, the University of Colorado Hospital, the research labs and classrooms of the university’s medical school, and an office park for bioscience startup companies.
Education 2 South, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado. Anderson Mason Dale, 2007
29
Academic Office One, Anschutz Medical Campus. Aurora, Colorado. Anderson Mason Dale, 2007
32
i
n the Rocky Mountains foothills west of the city, a new visitors center has been added to Red Rocks Amphitheater, a performance venue amid towering rock formations first used 100 years ago, and fully developed during the Great Depression. Some of the changes have been chain reactions. Plans to replace the state courts complex on the southeast corner of Civic Center
Left, The prow of the Hamilton Wing of Denver’s art museum arches over a sunset on 13th Ave. Above, the Museum Residences face the new wing. Both by Daniel Libeskind Studio, 2006.
Plaza called for an expansion onto space occupied by the Heritage Center, the museum of the Colorado Historical Society. With the destruction of the 1977 buildings, a new History Colorado museum was built a block south of the old site, and opened April 26. The Ralph Carr Justice Center
itself will open in 2013.
O
n the opposite corner of Civic Center Plaza, the Hamilton Wing of the Denver Art Museum opened in 2006. Designed by Daniel Libeskind, architect of the Ground Zero master plan and freedom Tower on the site of New York’s’ World Trade Center, the museum expansion also includes Libeskind-designed apartments, the Museum Residences. n 33
The postmodernist red, green and beige masses of Michael Graves’ 1995 Denver Public Library are reflected in Libeskind’s art museum overpass as a family works on an art project. n
Out of Our Past: June 24, 2007 SiCKO film director Michael Moore gets a hug from Donna Smith at a health care reform rally on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol. Smith, who had a featured role in the movie, lives in suburban Aurora. Andy Piper ColoradoSeen
36
37
If you like what you’ve Seen here
You can be a part of it. Just click this page to make a supporting donation to Colorado Seen