Sinclair Gas Station drawing, based on the station still standing on South Broadway (as of this writing) in Denver, built sometime in the 1950s, I presume.

Sinclair made AM radios that looked like these pumps. Let me know if you have an extra one!

Variations on this gas station are peppered all over the Denver area. The all have that same roof over the pumps.

SketchUp

Drawing of White Spot on Alameda, in Denver.

This is now Davies’ Chuck Wagon II.

SketchUp, CorelDraw

This is an old White Spot location, circa early-1960s, now Davies’ Chuck Wagon II. (Pictures of Davies’ Chuck Wagon I can be found here.)

The White Spots were designed by Armet & Davis, the firm famous for their Los Angeles coffee shop architecture, a style referred to as Googie. (Though the Googie’s restaurant itself was designed by John Lautner)

This design is different than the other Denver White Spots, I guess I would call this a butterly roof with an additional fold.

I like the way they had the White Spot signposts penetrate the rooflines.

The interior has been refurbished over the years, but you can still appreciate the vaulted ceilings and flowing counters. I have also posted pictures of another former White Spot on my new site, the Denver Eye.

There was a time, not that long ago, when Capitol Hill in Denver had many ’50s/’60s apartment buildings with similar original color schemes such as this. Sadly, they have been all painted beige and neutralized.

This building, over in the same former University of Colorado hospital area as the previous two posts, still has it’s original coloring. I am going to take a wild shot in the dark and date this building from around 1965.

This building also features a wonderful inviting concrete sheel entranceway.

I have to wonder if this shell is the work of Denver engineer Milo Ketchum.

Just came back from watching this amazing documentary at the Denver Art Musuem as part of the Design Onscreen series of films.

Another building from the former University of Colorado medical campus to meet the wrecking ball soon, the Colorado Department of Health Center building, designed by Eugene Sternberg, I believe in the late-’50s.

This building is a classic example of International-style, as opposed to the Usonian-style of the previous post. In some ways it reminds me of the Texaco Building on Grant.

Eugene Sternberg is well known for his contribution to Arapahoe Acres, and his many social mind designs for hospitals and schools, such as the Arapahoe Community College building.

Wonderful light fixture design

Boomerang benchs

It’s been clear for quite awhile that this building is going to be tore down, they have been letting it fall into disrepair.

It’s too bad they could bring themselves to repurpose these medical campus buildings.

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.

Pete’s Satire Lounge sign on Colfax has fresh paint on it.

They rehabbed the interior as well. They redecorated in a similar
fashion to Pete’s Greek Town Cafe.

The Satire is famous for the earliest parts of the careers of the
Smothers Brothers, Judy Collins and Bob Dylan.

I’ve drawn the beautiful Satire sign in 3D before, click and see.

If you were following along at all during the weekend, I was posting incomplete versions of this drawing as I was working on it, just for fun. This is a Google SketchUp 3D illustration of a ’50s-era Automart Grocery Store, with a hyperbolic curved roof.

I love to illustrate and since it is on target with the same subject matter as the rest of this site, I feel it is appropriate. Click on the illustrations to make them larger.

I “eyeball” all of the dimensions for my drawings, so there are sometimes minor things that are inaccurate. I reserve the right to call this “artistic license”.

Thanks for visiting Modeling Mid-Century Modern!

Scattered around the Denver area are these wonderful examples of ambituous octagonal hyperbolic curve engineering. All were originally Automart Grocery Stores from the 1950s.

Hyperbolic roof designs usually use 3 inch thick poured concrete held in place by the magic engineering of the double-curvature of catenaries and archs. This method allowed engineers to use 3 inch thick concrete over much larger roof expanses for the high-end hyperbolic paraboloid designs of the Zeckendorf Plaza in Denver and the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.

This former Automart located on S. Broadway and Orchard in Littleton seems to be the one that is most intact. It has the most existing glass and least amount of repainting. You can see faint remnants of black and white checker patterns on the curved edges of the roof.

Other locations are Carneceria Guadalajara at 1st and Sheridan on the Denver/Lakewood border, another on South Federal and Ada Place in Denver, one on 38th and Yates in Wheatridge, and there is an empty one on W. Mississippi and Kendall out in Lakewood. (Update: I just remembered the one in Cherry Creek at 1st and Cook!)

If you know of another, I would love to hear where it is!

These were inviting roadside structures designed to draw in drivers with this welcoming rotunda style. The fact that there are at least five that are still standing shows how much this unique shape is appreciated.

There is a middle school in Lakewood with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof that is just about to come down in June once school is out. I will try to take pictures of this sad occasion.