history, inside and out
By Tom Hess D
Camp Amache housed more than 7,500 Japanese-American men, women and children in 30 “blocks,” with 12 one-story buildings making up one block.
Did you or your ancestors move to Colorado with dreams and aspirations, looking for a better life or a better job? Or did someone else make the choice for you? Did you come here to re-invent yourself, or did circum- stances require it? Whichever way you got here, did you fi nd that even though it’s not always
easy to live here, you’d still rather dwell a mile high? If you said yes to any of these statements, then museum expert Kathryn
Hill is confi dent that you’ll fi nd something to connect with at the new History Colorado Center (303-HISTORY,
www.historycolorado.org), locat- ed at 1200 Broadway in downtown Denver. The Center, itself a reinvention of the old (and demolished) Colorado
History Museum, is something entirely new: a $110-million facility fl ooded with light that, when the doors open April 28, will be loaded with interac- tive technology. The opening of a major new museum is big news in any city—a once-a-
century event. And History Colorado Center is justly receiving statewide and national notice. But what will it feel like to walk through the Center? EnCompass got a sneak peek months ago, long before the exhibits were installed, and came away dazzled by the possibilities.
Big windows, big map
This is as a much a place for people as it is for artifacts, with big, brightly lit public spaces available for anything from town hall meetings to wed- ding receptions. Several west-facing rooms on the second fl oor offer views that got me thinking of events I hope to someday attend, if only to look out those windows toward Denver’s Golden Triangle and beyond to America’s shimmering, marquee mountains. If this were a townhome project, people would pay a fortune to wake up each morning to that view. On the main fl oor is the soon-to-be-famous fl oor map of Colorado,
a 40-foot by 60-foot terrazzo tile masterpiece beneath a sky-lit atrium. Standing on the map offers you a view of the state from 400 miles high. Tap your toe or point your fi nger to the spot where you live now, and per- haps where you grew up. Looking at the map from upper fl oors gives you the bigger picture—an emerald rectangle criss-crossed with rivers and high- ways, and divided between white-tipped mountains and smooth prairie.
EnCompass March/April 2012 27
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