Fentress Architects
The Denver, Colorado office.
Practice information
Key architectsCurtis Fentress, FAIA, RIBA
Founded1980
LocationDenver, Colorado, United States of America
Significant works and honors
BuildingsDenver International Airport, Incheon International Airport, Colorado Convention Center, the Broncos Stadium, National Museum of the Marine Corps, Arraya Tower, National Museum of Wildlife Art, the modernized Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX (2013), and the Green Square Complex in Raleigh, North Carolina (2012
AwardsOver 425 for innovation and design excellence[1]

Fentress Architects is an international design firm known for large-scale public architecture such as airports, museums, university buildings, convention centers, laboratories, and high-rise office towers. Some of the buildings for which the firm is best known include Denver International Airport (1995), the modernized Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX (2013), the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia (2005), and the Green Square Complex in Raleigh, North Carolina (2012).

Founded in 1980 by Curtis W. Fentress, FAIA, RIBA, the firm's designs, especially its airports, are often compared to the expressionist architecture of Eero Saarinen.[2] However, architectural curator Donald Albrecht has noted that within Fentress' designs is a "stiff dose of regionalism.[3] " Fentress Architects has studios in Denver, Colorado; Los Angeles; San Jose, California; Washington, D.C.; London; and Shanghai.

In 2010. Curtis Fentress was awarded the highest award for public architecture, the Thomas Jefferson Award, by the American Institute of Architects AIA Awards website.[4][5] Fentress was also given the Silver Medal in 2010, which is the highest award given to an architect from the AIA Western Mountain Region for the contributions made to the region.[6] In 2012, Fentress was awarded AIA Colorado's Architect of the Year.[7]

Fentress Architects is the designer of the Arraya Tower in Kuwait City.[8] The tower is the tallest in Kuwait and the 53rd tallest in the world [9]

History

Curtis Fentress graduated with honors from North Carolina State University's College of Design, School of Architecture where he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree.[citation needed] Following graduation, he joined the firm of I.M. Pei and Partners in New York City. As a Senior Designer, he was responsible for the master planning of major site development plans. He became a project designer with the New York architectural firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox. During this time, he came to Denver as the Project Designer for the Rocky Mountain Headquarters of Amoco in downtown Denver.

In January 1980, Fentress formed C.W. Fentress and Associates with James Henry Bradburn. After early success, the collapse of the oil and gas industries in Colorado in the early 1980s ushered in a period of difficulty for the firm. Fentress Architects' fortunes rebounded in 1987 when the firm won a design competition for the Colorado Convention Center. The competition pitted Fentress and his partners against several better-financed and more famous opponents, including Phil Anschutz, who had partnered with the firm belonging to Curtis Fentress' former mentor, I.M. Pei.[10] It was only in the 1990s that Fentress Architects rose to international fame by designing the Denver International Airport. The peaked roof of the terminal has become well known to travelers worldwide and ushered in a revolution in more expressionistic airport design.[3] Curator Donald Albrecht credits the design of Denver International Airport with bringing glamor back to the airport typology.[11]

The unveiling of DIA was marked by a dysfunctional "state-of-the-art" baggage delivery system (the vendor at fault has since replaced the system). Subsequently, DIA has been voted the "Best Airport in North America" [12] and the fourth "Favorite American Architecture" completed in the last fifteen years.[13]

In 2001, Fentress designed the Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, voted "Best Airport Worldwide" four consecutive years by Airport Council International's Airport Quality Survey program.[14] Airport Council "Best Airport in the World" in 2007 by passengers surveyed for the Official Airlines Guide.[15] The firm designs a range of large scale projects (see listing below) from museums and convention centers, to stadiums and commercial office buildings.

Bradburn retired, and in 2007, the firm's name was abbreviated from Fentress Bradburn Architects to Fentress Architects. To date, the firm has won 425 design and innovation awards and has a design portfolio of $27 billion. Each year, more than 330 million people worldwide visit a project designed by Fentress Architects.[1]

Now Boarding

In 2012, a major museum exhibition of Fentress Architects' airport designs entitled Now Boarding: Fentress Airports + the Architecture of Flight was opened at the Denver Art Museum.[16] Curated by Donald Albrecht, architectural curator for the Museum of the City of New York whose previous exhibitions include well-received retrospectives on the work of such architectural notables as Eero Saarinen and Charles and Ray Eames,[17] Now Boarding ran for nearly three months.

A travelling version of the exhibition appeared in Amsterdam in November 2012,[18] and the exhibition's full version will open in at the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, CA beginning in March 2013.

Awards and honors

World's Best Airports: Fentress-designed Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea was voted "World's Best Airport" by Skytrax's 2009 World Airport Awards, a survey of 8.6 million international travelers.[19]

World's Most Beautiful Airports:

Denver's airport features a Teflon-coated tensile fabric roof—the world's largest when the airport opened in 1995.[20]

World's 4th tallest building completed in 2009: Fentress is the designer of the world's 4th tallest building completed in 2009—Arraya Tower in Kuwait City, also the tallest in Kuwait.[21] Arraya is one of 14 high rises in Fentress' design portfolio in the Persian Gulf.

Architectural philosophy

Fentress has developed a design process he calls the "Patient Search". He has said of the process; "I don't begin with a preconceived notion of what the building needs to be – it is not a sculpture. I patiently search, walk the site, study the culture, follow our process until I find a seam somewhere, crack it open and discover the art inside." Asked about his philosophical approach, Fentress once stated, "My philosophy is ultimately...pragmatism".[22][23]

Rankings

Sustainable design

LEED certified projects include, but are not limited to:[29]

Projects

Airports

Civic

Commercial Office & Mixed-Use

Cultural

Laboratory

Public Assembly

Education

Hotel & Residential

Further reading

Newspaper/Magazine articles

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Fentress Architects | the Art Inside | Firm Profile". Archived from the original on 2013-02-28. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  2. ^ "Now Boarding: Fentress Airports + the Architecture of Flight, Denver Art Museum | California Literary Review". Archived from the original on 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  3. ^ a b "Fentress Architects and the Reinvention of Airport Design - SURFACE". Archived from the original on 2013-01-09. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
  4. ^ "AIA Jefferson Award recipients". Aia.org. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  5. ^ "AIArchitect website". Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  6. ^ "Silver Medal". Design Team Information. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02.
  7. ^ Colorado, A. I. A. "Architectural Jobs, Resources, & Education". AIA Colorado. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  8. ^ "Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat: Tallest Buildings Completed in 2009". Ctbuh.org. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  9. ^ "The Skyscraper Center". www.skyscrapercenter.com. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  10. ^ "Seeds of the center". May 20, 2005. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  11. ^ "'Now Boarding: Fentress Airports + The Architecture of Flight' Exhibition". ArchDaily. Feb 17, 2012. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  12. ^ [Airport Council International's (ACI) Passenger Quality Survey of 200,000 world travelers every year for the past four years, 2006-2009]
  13. ^ [American Institute of Architects (AIA) survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 2008]
  14. ^ "Airport Council International". Archived from the original on 2012-05-26. Retrieved 2009-04-15.
  15. ^ "Official Airlines Guide Awards". Archived from the original on 2008-03-06. Retrieved 2008-03-27.
  16. ^ "Now Boarding". Denver Art Museum. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  17. ^ "Donald Albrecht". Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  18. ^ Vélez, Nathalia (Nov 27, 2012). "Now Boarding takes off at Airport Exchange 2012 in Amsterdam". Westword. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  19. ^ "Skytrax World Airport Awards". Archived from the original on August 5, 2013. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  20. ^ "World's Most Beautiful Airports". Travel + Leisure. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  21. ^ "CTBUH website". Ctbuh.org. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  22. ^ [The Patient Search and Other Architectural Adventures]
  23. ^ "Curtis W. Fentress Quotes :: Quoteland :: Quotations by Author". www.quoteland.com. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  24. ^ "Architectural Record Top 150 Design Firms". Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  25. ^ "BD&C Giants 300". Bdcnetwork.com. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  26. ^ "ENR Top 500 Design Firms". Enr.construction.com. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
  27. ^ a b "Reports". www.construction.com. Feb 8, 2017. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  28. ^ a b "The 2009 Architect 50: Our First Annual Ranking of Top Architecture Firms - Architects, Business, Sustainability - Architect Magazine". Archived from the original on 2012-06-10. Retrieved 2010-01-29.
  29. ^ "U.S. Green Building Council - LEED projects directory". Archived from the original on December 19, 2016. Retrieved Jul 29, 2019.
  30. ^ "Tallest Buildings Completed in 2009". ctbuh.org. Archived from the original on 2010-03-23.
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