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Tivoli turnabout is dirt theater
By Andrew Flohr-Spence
spencand@mscd.edu

Urban planning, I admit, isn’t something I normally spend much time pondering. But that changed recently, with a giant, fenced-off, muddy hole lying in my path.

With Auraria’s latest project cutting off the main route to and from the Tivoli right as we head into the last stretch of the semester, I have found myself several times in the past week asking with fellow students: Why on Earth did they choose now to start? Was this a part of the rumored “master plan?” And why in the hell do we need an outdoor theater, or whatever it is, anyway?

In a conversation with my friend Michelle, a graduate student in urban and regional design at one of those other schools on Auraria, she emphasized the importance of harmonious urban planning.

“Architecture can affect your brain,” she said. “People form a relationship with their surroundings. It affects your moods, the way you look at life, even how well you concentrate.”

Now, I was worried. A quick look around campus says that planning has not always been of the highest concern. The late ’80s version of a space-age mall between the North Classroom and the Plaza Building obviously employed a design team for a little while, but several of the buildings look like an uncreative person had a big pile of brown cinder blocks lying around and needed something to do with their time. In a way the bizarre mixture has its own charm, but one could never say this artistic train wreck has harmony.

Not that I have much nostalgia for the old cement bus turnaround in this case, but by destroying the old to build any sort of cheap-trend architecture of the month with the hope of making a dime from renting it out, we are losing our memory of the past. Our children suffer from it, we suffer from it and the poor old folks are just insane with confusion from the lack of any landmarks from which to gain a bearing.

Had Auraria considered the weight of its actions? Did these people realize the possible mental injury they could cause? I had to ask somebody on the phone.

“A lot of care and planning went into this project,” said Jeff Stamper, director of Auraria Event Services. Stamper said that this project had nothing to do with the new “master plan,” but rather is the last piece in the Tivoli renovation, which included stripping the building’s paint down to brick and adding a loading dock. “This is just the final phase,” he said.

According to Stamper, the giant dirt pit east of the Tivoli will soon be a multipurpose plaza/passageway/outdoor theater, with “a DIA-like tent over the bleachers.” Most of the project will be finished next month with the theater taking a month longer, he said.

“We realized the campus lacked any decent outdoor performance space,” Stamper said. He explained that in the design phase for the Tivoli revitalization, the former bus turnaround was pinpointed as a safety hazard and slated for removal. Putting the amphitheater there was the obvious choice.

Stamper said the decision to start construction when they did was caused by a number of factors. This winter’s snowfall delayed the start, along with delays in the design process. Waiting for summer was debated, he said, but “construction crews are already booked for the summer, and the cost of materials is always rising.”

As I hung up the receiver, I was almost in tears. Did they even know the emotional baggage I have with DIA-like tents? Damn the reality of materials cost, anyway!

While I really try to remain optimistic, I cannot help but be concerned how the thing will look in the end, let alone how many cases of madness it will cause. If Auraria has any mercy, they will spare us more mental anguish, or at least leave out the DIA tent.