William Zeckendorf
In 1938 William Zeckendorf, a New York City developer, accepted a partnership at Webb and Knapp, at the time, a NYC based realty company. Over the years he became disenchanted with the challenges and limits he faced as a developer working in New York. Once he was the principal at Webb and Knapp he was ready to implement his vision of the future, which was to not just erect buildings but to jump start cities through development.
He understood that to realize his vision he would need a strong in-house architectural firm. In 1948 asked his friend Nelson Rockefeller for help. Rockefeller set Dick Abbott ( a colleague he knew from his work on the revitalization of the Museum of Modern Art) to the task of finding the right architect to lead the architectural side of Webb and Knapp. Zeckendorf had requirements of this new architect. He must be smart, talented, and creative with a certain age, experience and maturity level. Abbott interviewed a dozen architects, none quite right, until he met Ieoh Ming Pei, a professor of architecture at the Graduate School Design at Harvard University. Pei had received his graduate degree in architecture from Harvard where he was a student of famed architect Walter Gropius, credited with bringing modernist architecture to the United States.
Zeckendorf was off, he was directing Webb and Knapp to begin projects that were private urban redevelopment. He started in Denver. On some levels it was a good match; Webb and Knapp wanted to revitalize a city and Denver needed revitalization. In the late forties and early fifties Denver was struggling to throw off its image as nothing more than a cow town that was experiencing growth only in the suburbs. Denver hadn’t had a new building downtown in close to 30 years, leaving a city ripe to implode upon itself. William Zeckendorf didn’t want to just build buildings he wanted to jumpstart growth and vitality for a city. To that end he would come armed with not just an idea for a building, but ideas for several buildings that would tie together.
Zeckendorf identified the old Court House Square property in the area that is now the south end of the 16th Street mall. The old court house had been torn down in the 1920s and nothing replaced it, it was a vacant lot. He went to work on selling his idea and was eventually successful and he was able to buy the property. In the meantime, to demonstrate he was serious he began buying property around the old court house, buildings on Court St and along 16th St. Webb and Knapp were certainly not the only developers with ideas for Denver, but they did set the bar.
He did not know it at the time but Claude Boettcher, a leader in all things related to Denver, was fueling the opposition to Zeckendorf’s plan. Once Zeckendorf was victorious in his pursuit of the Court House Square property Boettcher paid him a visit in New York and revealed he was behind the fierce opposition and offered Zeckendorf the opportunity to partner with him on additional Denver projects. They knit together a two project deal that included Court House Square and a piece of property that Boettcher owned at 17th and Broadway. These were the first two Denver collaborations between Pei and Zeckendorf.
Mile High Center at 17th and Broadway included the office tower anchored by Denver US National Bank, a plaza, and a since demolished hyberbolic arched pavilion. Court House Square was renamed Zeckendorf Plaza after William Zeckendorf. The most stunning feature of Zeckendorf Plaza was I.M. Pei’s hyperbolic paraboloid structure that anchored the May D & F department store, the third structure was the Hilton Hotel and its sky bridge joining the hotel and the department store. The destruction of the Zeckendorf Plaza hyperbolic paraboloid building stands as one of the worst architectural losses sustained by Denver.
Ieoh Ming Pei
Ieoh Ming (I.M.) Pei was born to a prominent Chinese family. As a young boy he was enthralled with architecture, studying the works of Le Corbusier. He had every opportunity for higher education and decided to enroll in the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1935 he travelled by boat to the United States, landing in San Francisco and taking a train to Pennsylvania. He was disillusioned by the study and its weighted focus on drawing classical Greek and Roman buildings. He was afraid he could not keep up. He transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study engineering. Recognizing his innate talent, the dean of the school encouraged him to return to architecture, which he did, graduating with a Bachelors in Architecture from MIT. Pei did his advanced work in architecture at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University earning a Masters of Architecture. Pei was a student of Walter Gropius. After graduation Pei stayed on and taught at the school, still working with and learning from Walter Gropius.
While working for Gropius as a teacher at Harvard he was hired by William Zeckendorf to establish and run his new architectural department at Webb and Knapp. His first Denver projects with Zeckendorf were Court House Square, later named Zeckendorf Plaza and the Mile High Center at 17th and Broadway. Pei hired Carl F. Groos, Jr to work at Webb and Knapp, ultimately bringing him to Denver to work on his two big projects here.
In addition to Zeckendorf Plaza and the Mile High Center Pei was responsible for the breathtaking National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. the building itself is stunning and is matched by its response to the natural setting where it appears. This is the project that launched Pei’s career. I.M. Pei also designed the 16th Street mall in downtown Denver. Pei has legendary buildings world wide, the JFK Library in Massachusettes, the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the pyramid at the Louvre in Paris easily jump to mind, and that’s just a smattering.
The Architectural Influences on Cherry Creek Tower
While the names William Zeckendorf and I. M. Pei are, rightfully, never associated with Cherry Creek Tower; but, if not for them it could be argued that Cherry Creek Tower would not exist. There would likely be an apartment building of some sort on the property, just not this building.
In 1950 Carl F. Groos, Jr., a Texas native, graduated Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He was trained as an architect under Walter Gropius and I. M. Pei. Later that year Groos was hired by Pei to work at the Webb and Knapp architectural studio. He left Houston to join Pei in NYC. Eventually, he was brought to Denver to be part of the early team where he did the preliminary work on both Zeckendorf Plaza and the Mile High Center, Pei’s two Denver collaborations with William Zeckendorf.
Groos stayed in Denver and enjoyed a flourishing architectural career. He married Marjorie Daphne Buell, daughter of Denver’s influential architect and developer, Temple Hoyne Buell.
Cherry Creek Tower is frequently compared to the Lakeshore Drive condominiums in Chicago, concluding that this is a Mies building. That happens because it was an early high-rise with a glass curtain wall; but it is more nuanced than that. There are influences of Gropius, Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies. The inset porches and concrete forms are Le Corbusier, the screened porches are Gropius. When submitting Cherry Creek Tower for an architectural award in the class of High Rise Apartment Building Groos said, “This building is notable in providing a sheltered, screened in terrace for each tenant in lieu of the more usual open balcony; in such a manner that the terraces are partially protected and do not destroy the integrity of the simple block of the building’s shape.”
Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Alvar Alto, Le Corbusier all played important roles in the development of modernist architecture in both Europe and United States. Gropius founded the Bauhaus school of architecture in Germany in 1919. Mies came to the school later and the two worked together. They both left Germany in the 1930s, Gropius went to Massachusetts and Mies to Chicago. Gropius chaired the Graduate School of Design at Harvard and Meis taught at Illinois Institute of Technology. Walter Gropius, in addition to teaching at Harvard, taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a founding member of the Architects Collaborative (1945-1995), a leading architectural firm specializing in post-war modernism. I.M. Pei is clearly a beneficiary of that legacy, until his death he was a major force in modern architecture. These architects all worked and taught in an overlapping environment. They brought their passion for modern architecture to the up and coming American architects. Carl Groos was one of those next generation architects, educated by both Walter Gropius and I.M. Pei, their influences can be seen in our building.