Children’s Psychiatric Day Care Center in Denver built 1962.

Designed by Denver’s foremost Usonian-style architects, Victor Hornbein and Ed White.

This day care center bears a striking resemblance to Hornbein and White’s Usonian design for the Denver Botanical Gardens.

Usonian is a style associated with Frank Lloyd Wright. Here you can see that the scaling is similar to a Wright design, perfect for children!

The two buildings in this post are among the many buildings on the former University of Colorado medical campus that are slated for destruction.

The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission approved landmarking status, but, sadly, the Denver City Council did not.

This is a shame. Usonian structures are often torn down before their historical importance is understood.

The Usonian concept was an ambitious effort to construct utopian structures in the United States. It was a way of building the future now.

Usonian was the contrasting U.S. style to the more European International-style.

International-style is usually undecorated, while Usonian buildings do not have this limitation.

And while Usonian is a predominantly U.S. style, you still see more International-style buildings in the United States, making the preservation of Usonian structures that much more important.

This is the neighboring Usonian structure, the John F. Kennedy Childhood Development Center, also designed by Victor Hornbein and Ed White, in 1968.

Since the structures are no longer used, they give off a ghostly vibe that constrasts with the vibrant architecture.