May 2022 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold “Populus,” a new Denver hotel designed by the Studio Gang, headed by award-magnet Jeanne Gang, the Chicago-based architect renowned for producing “the tallest woman-designed building in the world” (at the time it was completed), a distinction that garnered her the MacArthur “millionaire genius” award. As per the usual grad school metaphysics that attend all architecture projects these days, the building makes iconic reference to something in nature sufficiently recondite and abstruse that it requires a thesis to explain: “The windows’ distinctive shape is informed by the growth process of aspen trees, an instantly recognizable symbol of Colorado… blah blah.”

Populus advertises itself as “the first carbon-positive hotel in the United States,” in synch with the masochistic ethos currently reigning in Western Civ. The embodied carbon footprint of the building reportedly “will be offset by planting trees equivalent to 5,000 acres of forest, removing the equivalent of 500,000 gallons of gas from the atmosphere,” the PR says. Really? Like, where exactly do they propose to plant 5,000 acres of forest where there isn’t a forest already growing? The Sonoran desert? Elsemere Island?

Meanwhile, notice the hotel’s location between a four-laner and what looks like a six-laner (with medians). That’s the actual environment we live in, tailpipe emissions and all.