Glyph, Paula Castillo, 2024

SERVICES PROVIDED: Design coordination, Materials research, Budget management, Engineering coordination and oversight, Fabricator bid process, Fabrication oversight, Installation oversight, Scheduling, Project close-out.

Paula Castillo was selected to create three iconic sculptures for the shared Denver Art Museum and Denver Central Library Campus in Denver, Colorado. The first sculpture in the series entitled Equis was installed in May 2024 outside of the Denver Central Library near the intersection of West 14th Ave. and Broadway. The second sculpture in the series entitled Glyph was installed in September 2024 outside the entrance to the Denver Art Museum’s Ponti building at the corner of West 14th Ave. and Bannock Street.

This work elevates a metamorphosis of a Meso-American motif in conversation with the reinvigorated Ponti building and the Beaux-arts narrative at Civic Center Park. Glyph is inspired by the Meso-American Xicalcoliuhqui and the Greek-Key glyphs. Xicalcoliuhqui is the most ubiquitous of the Meso-American glyphs. Even the Puebloans in Colorado used it. Uto-Aztecans applied it so extensively that the cost of adding it to public facades was often ten times more expensive than the buildings themselves.

The Greek key, a Greek and Roman motif, and Xicalcoliuhqui are almost identical structurally. When Spanish Colonialists first saw Xicalcoliuhqui in the Americas, they called it ''greca.'' The Greek key is still in evidence today in classicizing architecture, as seen in several places in Denver's European-inspired Civic Center Park. These two symbols are literally, together with other design features, signs of community building. We know that Denver's 19th-century Beaux- arts movement used public space embellishment to inspire community order, dignity, and harmony. Some scholars suggest that the cultures that used Xicalcoliuhqui used it more directly like a New Deal public works method for mass employment.

Although these differences are interesting, the purpose of the Glyph is not to compare approaches to community building. Conceptually, this creative variation of Xicalcoliuhqui, heightened and face-to-face with the community-oriented neoclassical Civic Park, creates a perfect opportunity to rethink what it means to belong and be a healthy community in the American 21st century. This conversation of inclusion feels essential in this historical community space of Denver. 

The final sculpture in the series entitled Trestle will be installed on the plinth at 12th and Acoma facing the Denver Art Museum’s Hamilton Building in 2025.

Select text and digital renderings courtesy of Paula Castillo. Fabrication images courtesy of Elmendorf Geurts.