Down and Out in Denver

This week in the New York Times, Robin Pogrebin reported that The Aspen Art Museum is proceeding with the purchase of land in downtown Aspen for the construction of a new building designed by the architect Shigeru Ban, pictured above. They’ve made public the design concept and preliminary model of the 30,000-square-foot wood-and-glass structure. The museum also announced that the new building will include 12,500 square feet of exhibition space, a roof-deck sculpture garden, a classroom, museum shops, cafe, offices and storage.

The Aspen Art Museum has some less-than-inspiring images of the proposed project. For a visual arts institution you might expect something a little more sexy. In any case, I’m a little confused… the project was announced back in 2008 and when you head directly to Shigeru Ban’s site you see what must have been the original proposal (?) when the project began. Two similar but different looking designs, but no mention of the changes anywhere in the press.