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Boulder, Colorado
I am a breathing time machine
There are lots of things to do at an AIA Convention. In addition to tours, there’s a reade show, keynote presentations, classes, meetings, exhibits and receptions. There is also a program I usually skip called Dining by Design, which includes dinner somewhere interesting (to architects) and this time I actually went on one that took us out of the city and all the way out to Boulder.
The event included a tour of a local performing art center and dinner at the Dushanbe Teahouse, an absolutely spectacular building where I had the best tea of my life. The teahouse was built in Tajikistan by hand (no power tools were involved) and was shipped in 200 crates to Denver with famously no instructions on how to put it back together. It took ten years to get things together and open the teahouse, although most of the issues were funding and not assembly related.
And while the teahouse and the tea were spectacular, the AIA did not do an especially good job with this tour. First off the bus driver did not know where he was supposed to go, and then, when our party of 20 people showed up at the teahouse, they had no idea that we were coming and that we already paid for dinner. Luckily one of the people on the tour was a local Boulder official who sorted things out and personally footed the bill. Thanks guy from Boulder whose name I don’t remember!
Not everything on this trip was an educational tour or a poorly coordinated trip to a spectacular teahouse. I managed to carve a little time out for myself and took a trip all the way out to Aspen, a three and a half drive on highways and up and over mountains that my unlucky rental car really did not want to do. I had been to the mountains before and crossed I-70 all the way to Utah more than once, but this was my first stop in Aspen and it’s all Ansel Adams’ fault.
One of my favorite Ansel Adams photographs is of Maroon Bells, a group of especially picturesque mountains located outside Aspen, and with my free time, I planned a quick visit to see them. You can’t tell from this picture, but I am not the only one enjoying this view on this perfect June day. The trails and area are so packed that you need to take shuttle buses in from a nearby ski area, and while you’re going to get amazing views like this on the trail, you’re not going to find a second of solitude.
The drive to (and from) Aspen is kind of grueling, with steep hills and trucks and hairpin turns and other cars that are either too aggressive or too slow and always seems to make it a bit more unpleasant than it should be. So,. after my visit to Aspen and Maroon Bells I thought to myself that at least I don’t have to do that drive again.
Fast forward two years later. It’s now 2015 and I’m back in Colorado and back in Denver and driving (again) back out to Aspen specifically to see this- the spectacular Aspen Art Museum designed by Shigeru Ban. It’s exterior is defined by a woven wooden screen, that covers galleries and a rooftop cafe and terrace and some stairs that are way more fun tan they should be.
Not all that far outside Aspen is Ashcroft, a silver mining town that isn’t what it used to be. In 1885 they had 3,500 residents and 20 saloons,, 15 years later (when the mines stopped producing) there was almost no one left. The very last resident made it all the way to 1939 and left us with a still deteriorating, very scenic mountain ghost town.
On the east side of Denver the land is wide, flat and open all the way to Kansas. You know what this feels like if you’ve ever driven out to the airport. On the west side of Denver however things start to get interesting. At the very start of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains is Red Rocks park, where a scenic drive and a loop trail get you close to all of the red rocks you can handle.
Not all of these pictures are from the 2013 AIA Convention in Denver, something you have probably already figured out. And, just like the Apsen Art Museum pictures, not all of these pictures are from 2013. These are photos from the Trading Post trail, generally on the high ground above the amphitheater. And they were all taken in 2015, although honestly the rocks don’t look all that different only two years apart.
Is it 2013 or 2015 now (It’s 2013 again actually) and is there a reason we keep switching back and forth in time (yes).
On a Saturday afternoon at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in June 2013, local residents hang out or aggressively exercise in the seating area of one of the most beautiful and spectacular places to see a concert. The view from the seats extends out all the way to Denver and beyond, framed by two massive red rock outcroppings. One day, I vowed to myself, I will return to this exact same location to actually see a concert in this most beautiful and spectacular place. You might now be seeing where I’m going with this.
Fast forward again to 2015, and on a Saturday evening there’s a lot more people in the beautiful and spectacular Red Rocks Amphitheater getting ready for a concert. In this case, the opening act is playing (Lake Street Dive), but everyone is honestly there to see the headliners (The Avett Brothers).
And while the summer skies look calm, just west of here they were pretty vicious. Between the opener and the headliner, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for the park. They told everyone to go back to their cars and hide and then come back at some point, not really the clearest or most efficient thing to do (like what happens to people who got there by public transportation), but I guess what else are you going to do with 10,000 people in a great open space in sudden severe weather. The concert restarted as the storms headed east, and while the Avetts played another memorable concert, cloud to ground lightning strikes across Denver and the open east lit up the summer sky.
But wait, there’s more
I go to these AIA Conventions almost every year, meaning that there’s lots of slideshows and pictures and stories from all sorts of different cities, showing off their best architecture and design for all to see.
