Denver Art Museum, Frederic C. Hamilton Building, CO, USA

The Denver Art Museum is currently in the process of its first major expansion in over 30 years. The 146,000ft² addition will nearly double the size of the museum when it is completed in the third quarter of 2006. The expansion, taking the form of a separate building joining the existing museum via a 100ft enclosed walkway, has been called the Frederic C. Hamilton Building after entrepreneur Frederic C. Hamilton, who has served as Chairman of the Denver Art Museum since 1994.

Construction of the museum expansion started in July 2003, with a celebratory weekend-long event for the general public to learn more about the future plans of Denver Art Museum taking place in August 2003. It took over a year to erect the steel structure of the building, and installing the titanium exterior began in mid-2004.

FUNDING

Public money will pay for the actual construction of the building, including architect and contractor fees and materials. The budget for this is $67 million, though the estimated cost will be $46 million. This public bond is projected to be $62.5 million. The museum has also raised an addition $23 million through donations from individuals and foundations. Interest from an endowment campaign, worth $60 million, will pay the museum's increased operation costs after 2006. This money was raised by museum trustees to supplement the existing endowment of $32 million. Frederic C. Hamilton made a personal contribution of $20 million to this fund.

MUSEUM CONTRACTORS

Berlin-based Architectural Studio Daniel Libeskind was appointed the lead architect in July 2000, following a competition with 40 other architects. Soon after, in August 2000, Studio Libeskind formed a joint venture with Denver-based Davis Partnership Architects to jointly design the Hamilton Building and surrounding complex.

In July 2001, M.A. Mortensen Company was selected as the contractor to build the expansion. Ove Arup is the structural engineer.

HAMILTON BUILDING

The original Denver Art Museum was designed by Italian architect Gio Ponti in 1971. Known as the Ponti Building, the 28-sided, two-towered, 210,000ft² structure will be connected to the Hamilton Building by an enclosed 100ft bridge. When completed, the Hamilton Building will become the main entrance to the entire museum complex, and will accommodate shops, a café, theatre and a rooftop sculpture garden with views over the Rocky Mountain range. Modern and contemporary art, as well as the collection of architecture and design and Oceanic art will be housed in the new building.

The Hamilton Building's architectural form consists of a series of wall planes. The new wing's design is created out of a titanium skin cladding and sculptural form, which naturally meshes with the surrounding civic buildings. The architect described the new wing as "a composition of two lines of a nexus coming together that tie downtown Denver and the Civic Center Park with the Golden Triangle neighborhood to the south".

The design consists of angular forms culminating in a cantilever that reaches across 13th Avenue towards the existing Ponti Building. There is a soaring lobby space with a glass ceiling located in the heart of the structure, and a glass sky bridge connection to the existing museum. The bridge will spill into a glass pavilion on the top floor of the Morgan Wing, which houses the museum's restaurant, and enter the existing grey glass tile Ponti Building through a wall at second-story level. The innovative structure is to be realized through the dramatic use of metal (titanium), glass and stone (Colorado granite).

When completed, the entire museum complex will total more than 350,000ft². A co-development project, consisting of a five-storey, 965-space car park and 270,000ft² of retail and residential space, has also been designed by Daniel Libeskind.

MUSEUM CONSTRUCTION

Construction of the Hamilton Building will require 2,740t of steel, 230,000ft² of titanium and 7,400yd³ of concrete. Almost all the steel used will be fabricated in the US.

The three largest steel beams weigh 550lb per linear ft and are 60ft long - so long that the only company able to fabricate the steel is based in Belgium. Mortensen used a 3D state-of-the-art computer program to map the location of every steel rod before it was installed. The company also applied a fireproofing material to all of the steel.

To make the Hamilton Building secure and stable, 116 vertical columns of steel and concrete extend from the building's foundation in to the bedrock.

When completed, the new extension to the Denver Art Museum will be the first Daniel Libeskind-designed structure to reach completion. In 2003 he was selected to design the Freedom Tower on the World Trade Center site in New York. When completed, this will be one of the most important buildings of the early 21st century.