Red Rocks Park, Morrison, CO.

Appearing small in this long shot, maybe it’s hard to believe that John Brisben Walker named this feature on his ranch Garden of the Titans.

Walker was a strong believer in Colorado’s natural parks.

He sold Red Rocks to Denver in 1927. Red Rocks Trading Post was completed in the 1930s. This was followed by Red Rocks Ampitheatre in 1941, after 12 years of planning & construction.

John Brisben Walker named the two main sandstone monolithic rock features of Red Rocks. This is Ship Rock.

This is the mighty Creation Rock, a dizzying sight when viewed up close.

Creation Rock towers over the audience, sitting in architect Burnham Hoyt’s sleek-lined bench seats.

These bench lines are an important and fascinating feature of Burnham Hoyt’s plan for Red Rocks Ampitheatre, designed in the International-style.

Poured concrete forms sit underneath beautiful red brickwork. . .

Sleek International-style lines. . .

Incredible natural beauty. . .

Renown Denver architect Burnham Hoyt’s design masterfully
integrated the ampitheatre into the rock outcroppings of Red Rocks.

(I think the tunnel leading to the upper parking lot was a fairly recent
addition. I thought I remembered seeing this under construction, maybe
some reader can fill me in)

View from the stage at Red Rocks looking up at the peak of Mt Morrison.

This roof wouldn’t have been in place for the famous Beatles performance of 1964, but it was there for the huge MTV hit, U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday video from 1983.

I believe my wife, modernist real-estate buyers-agent, Shannon Stanbro was at this U2 performance (getting rained on, no doubt)

And back again. . . to Creation Rock

Long shot of Creation Rock at Red Rocks Ampitheatre, Morrison, CO

Natural wonder, Red Rocks Park, west of Denver in the foothills of Morrison, CO.

The breathtaking rock outcroppings are part of the Fountain Formation, which also includes the Flatirons in Boulder, and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs.

Red Rocks Ampitheatre was completed on the spot in 1941, after famed International-style Denver architect Burnham Hoyt completed the design in 1936.

I currently live on Hoyt street, named in his honor.

This spot was originally part of the John Brisben Walker ranch, which Walker purchased after moving back to Colorado, after selling his Cosmopolitan Magazine to William Randolph Hearst.

Burnham Hoyt’s design is a masterpiece of consideration of site and setting, perfectly integrated into the natural rock formations.

Walker was the one who first envisioned this area as a natural musical ampitheatre and started having concerts here at the turn of the century. It’s too bad he didn’t live long enough to see Hoyt’s design.

The roof here was added, otherwise the ampitheatre has remained remarkably intact, despite numerous attempts to ruin it by upgrading the benchs/seats.

A scan of a postcard showing the original design without the roof.

Of course, when Hoyt designed the ampitheatre, he couldn’t have predicted the amount of electronic equipment required for contemporary rock bands.

The visual line of the benchs, straddling the distance between “Creation Rock” and “Ship Rock”, flanked by the planters and trees, is one of the strongest elements of Hoyt’s design.

Suggestions for walkway locations were provided by CCC and WPA workers, and then beautifully integrated into the landscape by Hoyt.

Walker’s original name for the site was Garden of the Titans.

Creation Rock at Red Rocks, Colorado

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Beautiful landmark Art Deco Glen Huntington Bandshell in Central Park, Boulder, Co from 1938

Often casually overlooked, this is a stunning compound arch design, which Huntington modeled after the Hollywood Bowl

Huntington worked in a variety of styles, building many houses in Boulder and Denver, including two great Denver Prarie-Style homes, along with the Art Deco Boulder Courthouse

Many musical acts have played here, including Tommy Bolin, Colorado’s equivalant of Jimi Hendrix

30s era Art Moderne design, combining horizontal lines of Streamline Modern, with the vertical Art Deco tower

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A day out at Bandimere Speedway dragstrip in Morrison, Colorado, a stones throw from Red Rocks Ampitheater. This year is Bandimere’s 50th anniversary!

I came by to check out a car show, the Hot Rod Happening.

These first pics in this post are rat rods, and likely very expensive ones at that!

The rustication and untreated metal look is, of course, quite intentional!

I came out fairly early, so this picture is of a time trial, that is why there is no one in the stands yet. Most everyone was in the pit checking out hot rods!

And it is always a treat to watch flathead inlines!

Bandimere Speedway, Morrison, Colorado

On this day they were doing Quick 16s, Fast 16s, Flathead Inlines, and a Hot Rod Happening

Bandimere Speedway is one of the highest altitude dragstrips in the country

Lucky for us here in the Denver area, we have a mountain dragstrip right near by!

Bandimere Speedway is located on the other side of Dakota Ridge from Red Rocks Ampitheater, just outside the town of Morrison.

The track is 50 years old this year. They keep threatening to relocate it, but I am glad it has managed to stay exactly where it is (10 minutes from my house!)

I popped over to Bandimere to catch the 50th anniversary Hot Rod Happening this last Sunday.

I was hoping to start posting pictures on Sunday night, but I took a lot more photos than I thought, and it took me this long to wade through them all.

For this first page I am concentrating on the 50s & 60s cars, then I will move on to the 30s & 40s and some really wild rat rods!

» Construction photos of the Structural Expressionist masterpiece of the Victorian era, the Eiffel Tower, and more photos here

» And for the Beijing Olympics, a beautiful HDR construction photo of the landmark CCTV Tower Building

» Videos of the planned Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid of Tokyo, which will apparently build itself with robots!

» An oddity, the Namba Parks Shopping Center in Osaka, Japan

» The stunning Malaysian Sky Bridge

» I am 6 foot, 4 inches tall, so I hate flying as it is so uncomfortable, but maybe if I was flying on A380 Airliner of Signapore Airlines I wouldn’t have any complaints

» Buildings of the future may just merely be Printed on inkjet-type printers. Guess they will have someone standing by feeding it cartridges

» And to finish this off, some fun videos of the amazing DB Fletcher Capstan Ilona Expanding Table and here

» One last fun video of an interesting design, the Walking Table

Outstanding 1970 design by Boulder architect Charles Haertling

Haertling did very few buildings in Denver, yet did 20 or 30 in Boulder

Many Boulder-ites attribute his Boulder buildings to Frank Lloyd Wright, but there are no Wright buildings in the state. None. Trust me. Anyone that tells you otherwise is mistaken.

I was in the nieghborhood last weekend and was alarmed to see that the new owner was constructing a fence on the property, obstructing the views seen in the photos above.

But. . . the severity of the fence fits perfectly with the “brutalist” style of the original design, so kudos to the new owner, job well done!