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Denver Center for the Performing Arts

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1978–1979, Kevin Roche of Roche/Dinkeloo. 14th St. to Speer Blvd. between Arapahoe and Champa sts.
  • Denver Center for the Performing Arts (watercolor by Barbara Froula)

Curtis Street, Denver's old theater row, runs from Cherry Creek through downtown high rises to 1880s homes in Curtis Park. All of the old theaters, including the finest building in the city, the Tabor Grand Opera House (1880, Willoughby and Frank E. Edbrooke), once at 16th and Curtis, have been demolished. Their descendant is the Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA). With multiple theaters, a television studio, voice research laboratories, and extensive production, rehearsal, and conservatory space, the DCPA is the second largest theater complex in the country, after Lincoln Center in New York. It occupies four city blocks and incorporates a grassy park along Speer Boulevard. A barrel-vaulted glass canopy, an evocation of Milan's Galleria, connects an eight-level parking structure to the old auditorium and new theaters and shelters a pedestrian promenade extension of Curtis Street.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel

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