Denver Art Museum will unveil the results of a multi-million dollar renovation project on June 6, 2020. This project entails refurbished three-floor art galleries, a restaurant, classrooms, and a new welcome centre.
The official announcement stated that the $150million project is going to be completed on the 50th anniversary of the Martin building. The opening of the Giro Ponti designed structure is going to be the very first phased opening of Martin building and the entire building will be available to the public by the end of 2021.
Upon completion, the project will have over 83,000 square feet space to cater to more than 800,000 guests that visit per year.
DAM’s (Denver Art Museum) director, Christoph Heinrich, stated “Today the Denver Art Museum celebrates a significant milestone in its journey toward expanding public access to our collections and programs,” and “Our hard construction is over. Now, we enter the museum-making phase, where our staff will turn these incredible new spaces into an engaging, welcoming and interactive art museum for all.”
The most prominent addition to the building is the Anna and John J. Sie Welcome Centre, which is sandwiched between the DAM and the Denver public library, close to the civic centre park in the downtown area.
The Bar Lit Learning and Engagement Centre is also going to open its doors in June 2020. It is situated in the centre of DAM campus to give easy access to students and the classrooms are going to be larger than the formerly disorganized spaces.
New galleries in the Martin building comprise of newly modified Amanda J. Precourt design galleries, Bonfils-Stanton gallery, and Northwest Coast and Alaska native gallery. Guests will have access to art conservation shows taking place in the conservation lab. DAM’s design and architecture collection will be interconnected, proving their visitors’ space to participate in creating artworks, design materials and respond to the ideas and designs laid out in front of them, giving them a more hands-on experience at the museum.
When entering, the guests will come across several objects hanging from the walls or exhibition podium and will be able to move around freely. Gio Ponti’s Martin building has three interconnected rooms which consist of a design studio with interactive properties and piazza-like design galleries simulating urban conditions. The design studio contains abstract planes and material similar to Ponti’s furnishings.
DAM boasts a collection of 19,000 artefacts from the 16t century to the modern-day and the design collection consists of one of the greatest contemporary designs compared to other museums in the US. On the day of the museum’s inauguration, there will be 400 objects covering two exhibitions, namely, By Design: Stories and Ideas Behind the Object, and Gio Ponti: Designer of a Thousand Talents.
The OMA (Office of Metropolitan Architecture) has said that the design galleries should diversify considering the ever-changing trends of our society. Reacting to these changes, the galleries are made in such a way that reveals that these spaces are much more than just a medium to showcase design – they all have their unique programs and identities.
