You are here

Denver Technological Center

-A A +A
1963, Harman, O'Donnell and Henninger. East side of I-25 between Belleview and Orchard aves.

Colorado's first distinctive office park was the brainchild of engineer and developer George M. Wallace, who wanted a “campus for the creative worker.” The Denver architects and planners landscaped grassy open space around lakes and planted more than 10,000 trees. (At least 30 percent of each building site is open space.) Parking and utilities are hidden off tree-lined, 30-acre “superblocks.” The sixty-eight buildings on DTC's 947 acres generally represent striking contemporary architecture and interior design. One of the few complaints has been the lack of interconnecting pedestrian paths.

Notable structures include the four-story glass office building (1982, C. W. Fentress and Associates) at 116 Inverness Drive East, one of the first buildings of its kind in the United States, a completely glass-sheathed, monolithic, geometric composition that shows no exposed structure and no window mullions. In a form that Charles Jencks has called “slick tech” it revisits the theories of Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock's 1932 discourse on the International Style. One DTC (1985, C. W. Fentress and Associates), 5251 DTC Parkway, is a thirteen-story office tower sheathed in reflective bronze glass dressed up by burgundy, mahogany, and gray Dakota granite and stainless steel banding, with a three-story, glass-enclosed lobby and a landscaped outdoor plaza.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,