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The City Beautiful Movement inspired urban beautification in architecture, landscaping and city planning in the United States from the 1890s through the 1920s. Influenced by the Beaux Arts architecture of Europe, American city-shapers designed civic centers, grand boulevards and parks in a quest for urban beauty. The City Beautiful model was "The White City" built at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, Illinois.

This was primarily an aesthetic movement, but its promoters felt that it would uplift the spirit too. The City Beautiful ideology also emphasized tourism, scenic values and boosterism. A popular poem from Denver's City Beautiful era reads:
Denver the beautiful, blest be her name
Hearts of her subjects with pride are aflame
Crowned with bright glory that never can wane
Denver the Queen of the Mountain and Plain.

[ from: Denver Municipal Facts, 1910]

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MCC-2715

At the heart of Mayor Robert Speer's City Beautiful dream for Denver was the Civic Center. Impressive neoclassical government buildings were to surround a flower-filled public park that would serve as the center for the city. A scaled-down version of the mayor's civic center plan was accepted, and the Greek Theater, Voorhies Memorial and the Colonnade of Civic Benefactors were completed in 1919.

All of the photographs in this exhibit were made by Louis C. McCLure.

MCC-2028
MCC-1309 Funded by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, the Denver Public Library was designed as a three-story Greek Revival temple featuring open shelves, an art gallery and a children's room. This new library was a cornerstone for Mayor Speer's plan for a civic center based on the City Beautiful model. When it opened in 1910, city boosters declared that "the library will hereafter be one of the city's show places."

MCC-1921
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, ca. 1912


MCC-1631
Hired to design a fitting monument marking the end of the Smoky Hill Trail, sculptor Frederick MacMonnies originally planned on topping his pioneer fountain with a bronze Indian. Denverites took such offense to this that the Indian was replaced by a figure of Kit Carson. Public sculpture, such as the Pioneer Monument, was a legacy of Denver's City Beautiful era.

MCC-2401
MCC-360 Designed by Denver architect Frank E. Edbrooke, the Brown Palace Hotel opened in 1892. Noted for its stunning Italian Renaissance architecture, it was advertised as being fireproof. The Brown's opulent interior boasted an eight-story, sky-lit atrium.


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