Denver International Airport Art and Culture Master Plan
Denver International Airport worked with a multidisciplinary team led by Bressi to create a comprehensive plan that guided the commissioning of new artworks for planned expansions of the airport and created a vision for the airport’s art program to be the anchor of a new cultural district of regional significance.
Date | 2012
Client | Denver International Airport Art Program
Collaborators | Via Partnership, Creative Time, Gorbet Design, Dwyer Brown, Deana Miller
When Denver International Airport opened in 1995, it boasted the finest airport art collection anywhere in the world. Only fifteen years later, it was on the brink of major expansion and sought to update its public art plan, in keeping with the city’s percent for art ordinance. Bressi assembled a team of leading public art curators, including experience in new media and temporary programs, to take up the challenge.
The plan built on deep insights into people’s perception and use of the airport, gathered through extensive surveys and on-site customer interviews, and embraced the airport’s strategic vision of being a hub for a regional business center.
The new plan positioned art and culture not only as a vital asset to the passenger experience in the airport, but also to the development of cultural tourism and the creative economy in Colorado. It proposed a full-fledged cultural district at the airport, with public art, performance and exhibitions – a resource for airport users, people visiting the rapidly growing business center, and the regional arts community.
The plan was developed as a supplement to the airport’s overall master plan, which envisions new terminals, concourses, and additional infrastructure that could double the airport’s capacity over the next thirty years.
The plan explores how permanent artworks, temporary artworks, exhibitions, and performances throughout the airport grounds – including public areas such as Jeppesen Terminal, plazas at the planned South Terminal, and along Pena Boulevard – can improve passenger satisfaction and attract the public to the airport’s shopping and dining, as well as the hotel and conference facilities that are under development. The plan also considered how partnerships with Colorado arts and culture organizations can enrich the airport’s offerings and mutually benefit airport organizations and those arts groups.
