Denver: The Mile High City
Denver: The Mile High City. A bustling metropolis on the cusp between mountains and plains. You look at the various logos created
for sports teams, for the city's tourism industry, even for the street signs, and you see a theme of sun, mountains and sky in juxtaposition.
Stand in the Civic Center, right at the hub of both governmental and cultural activity, not to mention commercial traffic, and look around.
You'll see a thriving art museum as you look South.
Turn to your left and the glowing gold dome of the Colorado State Capital evokes the sun rising over
the Kansas farmland which lies a few hours drive beyond.
Northward and through an arcade lined fountain, lies an entrance to a central business district
that supports shopping, dining, clubbing, and more.
But it's Westward that you need to gaze, if you want to follow the advice of Horace Greeley.
There's a city in Colorado that may be his namesake. But let us not digress.
It's the mountains which lie to the west, and as we stare over the
City and County Building, the tower which rises up out of it could be thought of as the sky vaulted over the mountains represented by the splayed out
Neo-Classical architecture of the City and County of Denver's main executive office building.
We spoke to Nate Webb, of Loveland, CO's Blazen Illuminations about the project :
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Denver city and county building
The Denver city and county building was built in the thirties and was built to represent the people and prestige of Denver. The architect envisioned Denver as the "Paris on the Plains".
It was built to be lit and has been lit for the holidays every year since it was built.
Look up "Denver city & county building" on wikipedia for more info on the building. There is tons of great info there.
We were asked to be a part of the latest revision of the lighting on the building.
For years it has been lit with standard incandescent flood lights, 90 watts each.
The city asked us and our partners at American lighting to provide them with a proposal to help them reduce the carbon footprint of the building in a effort
to be more environmentally responsible.
Blazen Illuminations & ENTTEC
The project currently has 110 LED RGB wall wash fixtures from American Lighting,
controlled with a DMX streamer .
The streamer is programmed to display the variety of scenes & shows that correspond with national health awareness months, holidays, and other special events.
We also installed a playback remote to manually select special scenes in case our sports teams win a big game.
This fall we will complete the lighting of the entire building with over 550 fixtures and 4 universes of DMX sent over ArtNet through
Enttec ODE devices .
The primary control will be handled with a Martin Maxxyz module cerebrum, the ODE's will provide both input and output of DMX.
Different Seasons & Color
The building will be lit every night year round, celebrating holidays and raising awareness for great causes.
For the month of October we are celebrating the race for the cure. The main tower will be lit pink in honor of Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
I am proud to have had the opportunity to light an iconic building that is revered worldwide for its architecture and its lights.
It is one of the most acclaimed architectural lighting displays in the country.
-- Nate Webb
Daylight photos by Jeremy Kumin
Night photos by Jeremy Garretson
All photos and images copyright their respective owners
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