WIDELY REVIEWED: DAVID ADJAYE’S NEW BUILDING FOR THE MCA DENVER

British architect David Adjaye’s first public building in the United States, for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, opened last weekend to much positive attention. David Hill, writing in Architectural Record, discusses some of the building’s details: “Working creatively on a tight budget of $15.9 million, Adjaye used inexpensive materials—such as concrete, plywood, steel, drywall, and recycled wood—for the interiors. On three floors, he created six self-contained galleries for exhibits, with light-filled ‘respite corridors’—which he says are designed to give visitors time to pause before moving to the next gallery.” The Denver Post’s art critic, Kyle MacMillan, notes that the building succeeds in meeting both of its goals: “to be an antidote to Daniel Libeskind’s aggressive, angled design for the Denver Art Museum” and to “gain attention in international architectural circles.” But don’t forget the art, he adds in another piece, writing of “Star Power: Museum as Body Electric” that “it is not really one show at all but rather a group of largely independent exhibitions in seven spaces, each devoted to a different up-and-coming artist from a different country. And on its terms, ‘Star Power’ succeeds in virtually every way.” In a post published at the beginning of the summer, the sustainable-design blog Inhabitat noted that Adjaye’s building was on target to become the first US museum to receive LEED Gold certification, noting its roof garden and its use of 40 percent less energy than a typical building of its size.