dancing with architecture: I.M. Pei in Boulder, Colorado

I was able to finally stop in at I.M. Pei's stunning Brutalism for the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Mesa Laboratory. Shoehorned into the foothills above Boulder, Colorado, it's a gorgeous setting for a gorgeous set of buildings.

Pei designed the complex in the early sixties and chose bush-hammered concrete made from local pink aggregate to complement the mountains. The Anasazi cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde were his muse. Pei designed the nearby administrative offices in 1969.

The administrative building has a much lower profile and is sympathetic to the main complex:

dancing with architecture: longmont, colorado

Working my way back to the airport, I stopped in to visit Prospect New Town, a New Urbanist project in Longmont, Colorado. I first read about the development in Karrie Jacob's "The Perfect $100,000 House". It's a neat development with mixed use, neighbor restaurants and bars, and houses that hug the curbs and lot lines. While there's a healthy share of traditional throwback architecture, there's also quite a bit of contemporary and Modern architecture, some of it quite spirited. The houses are humongous, in the 4,000 to 5,000 square-feet range.