Civic Center Park, located in downtown Denver, is an example of the ideas of City Beautiful and Grand Manner, which evoked the ideology that flourished in some North American cities in the beginning of the 20th Century. We can observe features in the buildings of national identity, civic identity, the power of the state, and social display. The park's scenerey contains vistas, garden, wide streets, and monumentality.
Relating to national identity, the Colorado State Capitol, constructed in the 1890s, is located on the east border of the park. National identity can be displayed by language, history, territory and by awareness of ethnic identity. The Colorado State Capitol contains these features. The building was built on the highest place of the park and provides a scenic vista. The capitol’s location on a hill symbolizes its majority, power and dominant status, not just in the park, but also within downtown and the state. Not only the decorative interior, but also the huge building’s exterior identifies the history of Colorado and people who lived here. The front facade is directed to the west with a view of the Rocky Mountains, which are of course considered a symbol of this country.
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| The Colorado State Capitol across Civic Center Park. |
The building’s location and stature also communicates with other representative buildings across the park, such as the Denver City & County Building. This is a very important feature of Grand Manner that can be seen not only in Europe and in the U.S., but also in ancient Mexican cultures where the Teotihuacan culture built their dominant civic pyramids opposite to each other across a large plaza. Within Denver, the two governmental buildings represent a symbol of national identity and create main points in the park.
Other prevalent symbols of Grand Manner are two “gates” that lead into the park, both of which were created in the Neoclassicism style. These gates create a majestic entrance from the north and south side of the park. Despite the beauty of the gates, the nearby North Voorhees Memorial Seal Pond is a fountain that looks, in my opinion, disappointing without any water for much of the year. Like the main entrance into the park, it is one of the symbols of the City Beautiful pattern, but now is unfortunately wasted space often filled with tree leaves.
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| Civic Center Park gates. |
The park is also followed by civic and cultural buildings that are situated around the park, buidings such as the Denver Public Library, the Denver Art Museum, the Webb Municipal Office Buildings, and the Denver Post. We can also consider these public buildings aroudn the park built in the 20th Century in the style of Brutalism, Postmodernsim, Destructivism, and how they participate in the aesthetic improvement of Civic Center Park. My opinion is that these buildings are in architectural harmony with other modern buildings of downtown Denver. Aesthetic progress shows the development of art, sculpture conception, and creates a well recognizable specific space where the park was located in the style of Grand Manner and City Beautiful, making a great constrast between modern and past times.
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| Flowers front the park's neighboring buildings. |
All around the park are many monuments celebrating different characters that correspond to the history of this country. The park in downtown is probably the best place within the city to collect social memories and these monuments can be considered a way of transmitting them.
Civic Center Park is well represented with many different statues and monuments that stir important memories and thoughts. We can say that these are objects of material culture that construct public memory. I would divide these monuments into four parts - monuments of national history, monuments of Colorado history, world memories, and monuments of Grand Manner and CIty Beautiful. Cultural diversity in Civic Center Park is identifiable with different cultures occupying Colorado now and throughout history. Native American statues show the origin of this country and the old way of life. Other examples of cultural diversity can be seen with the state's first colonists, Hispanics, who were always part of the population. New immigrants from various European countries who came here centuries ago play a role in the park's diversity and Japanese immigrants are represented by the monument deidcated to Ralph L. Carr.
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| Christopher Columbus statue. |
The park includes features that appeal to a wide variety of classes, ages, and cultural backgrounds. Children play in the park's fountain during those rare times when it is filled with water. Homeless people are allowed to rest in the park among the beautiful flowers or alongside monuments. Young professionals come to the park during the summer for the Civic Center Eats lunch festivals. The wide variety of cultural monuments appeals to older generations. The monuments link their memories and their own experiences to specific events in history. The park´s monuments, landscaping, and features try to appeal to a mix of different people who should all feel welcome in the park.
When compared with Washington Park, I think that the park in downtown is not as popular for common activities like sport and relaxation for Denver residents. Although beautiful monuments and architecture are in the park, people would rather spend their free time in Washington Park. Reasons for this are due to the high concentration of homeless people in Civic Center Park, drug dealers and busy roads surrounding the park. One informant said that since someone offered him drugs in this park, he avoids going there, despite working right next to the park. Also, last month’s protests when many people were sleeping in the park and were disorderly probably did not help the park’s reputation. But on the other hand, the park is open public space that should be used for public gatherings and demonstration of opinions and ideas. These problems in Civic Center Park are not unique in the world. For example, parks in Prague that are downtown are also occupied by homeless people and drug dealers. Drug addict sometimes even lie on monuments and beg for money. Prague has effort to solve this situation, but it is a problem of all society and it is not so easy to just move these people to other places. I would say that these problems are a part of culture in the city and that poverty and crime go together with the density of people.
Civic Center Park is not only a symbol of some ideologies, but even in the present day it also performs an important role in people´s daily lives as the place of various activities and cultural diversions that bring positive and negative impacts to this public space.
