Sites Unseen

Where to start? The massive undertaking that is Doors Open Denver is a growing, morphing creature that’s constantly finding ways to provide new experiences for Denverites curious about their city. At least 10,000 folks attended last year’s DOD events, according to Pauline Herrera of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, and this year’s version, Designing Denver, will build off that success with insider’s tours at nearly eighty locations today and tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (with a few exceptions). “It’s definitely a ginormous project,” Herrera says of the all-city open house. In fact, just whittling the tour choices to a workable itinerary can be exhausting.

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More About

• U.S. Department of Defense
• Pauline Herrera
• Designing Denver
• Anchor Center for Blind Children
• Photography

Appealing DOD urban adventures include a What Was This Building? tour offering background history on new and renovated locales, a Denver After Dark trek and an overview of Denver’s Greenest Buildings, as well as guided expert tours of the Anchor Center for Blind Children; downtown’s newly reopened Sage Building on the 16th Street Mall (formerly the broken-down Fontius Building); the innovative RiNo project Taxi; and the spooky Wastewater Management Building. Then there’s the Dearly Departed Architects of Denver, a program at Fairmount Cemetery. You can also enter the new Doors Open Denver Photo Competition. Open to anyone with a camera, the contest encourages people to snap photos of their favorite buildings, then upload their best to a Flickr site for review by a panel of judges; entries will be accepted until April 24, so you can even take photos during the DOD event.

Are these suggestions the top of the heap? Maybe, but trust me -- there’s no bottom of the barrel with this event. Contest rules and a complete list of tours and other events can be found at www.denvergov.org/doorsopendenver.
Sat., April 18, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sun., April 19, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., 2009