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The Denver Art Museum in the Smithsonian Channel TV series “How Did They Build That?”

The Denver Art Museum in the Smithsonian Channel TV series “How Did They Build That?”

The Denver Art Museum is prominently featured in the first episode of the new season of the Smithsonian Channel’s TV series “How Did They Build That?” which tells the origin stories of architectural wonders around the world.

Actor and host Jay Ellis (“Top Gun: Maverick”) calls Denver’s signature museum radical and mind blowing. “It’s like a spaceship has landed in the middle of Denver,” adds one of his expert commentators.

This wonderfully compelling retrospective retraces how the city turned to rogue architect Daniel Libeskind in 2000 when the Denver Art Museum was running out of space.

Challenged by the mantra “anything but a box” and inspired by the snowy peaks of the Rocky Mountains, Libeskind set out to create a gravity-defying, zig-zagging 146,000-square-foot building without a single right-angled corner or symmetrical wall.

You can watch this absorbing, geometry-geek’s dream episode at smithsonianchannel.com.

New episodes air Sundays at 6 p.m. on the Smithsonian Channel.

Other structures to be featured in the 10-part second season include the Hearst Tower in New York, the Guggenheim in Spain and the Evergreen Point 520 Floating Bridge in Seattle.

“Being able to hear firsthand accounts from the genius minds of these architects, and how they came up with and executed these remarkable designs is truly amazing and inspiring,” said Ellis.

Visionary Swedish artist and evident neat freak Claes Oldenburg, whose sculpture “Big Sweep” has greeted visitors of the Denver Art Museum every day since 2006, has died in New York at age 93.

Oldenburg and former wife Coosje van Bruggen were known for monumental sculptures that celebrate the simple significance of everyday things. “Big Sweep” is a 40-foot-tall sculpture made of stainless steel, aluminum and fiber-reinforced plastic, and painted with polyurethane enamel.

“It was inspired by the vast prairies and mountains of Colorado, the bright light and scouring winds,” the museum said in a statement. “The artists devised a graceful broom and dustpan that seemed to dance in the dazzling Western sun.”

John Moore is the Denver Gazette's Senior Arts Journalist. Email him at john.moore@denvergazette.com

Presented by the Colorado Theatre Guild

Opal Lee, who's known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, will be in Colorado Springs this weekend for two events. On Saturday she'll speak and sign copies of her children's book, "Juneteenth: A Children's Story," at Hooked on Books downtown. On Sunday she'll be honored at Packard Hall at Colorado College during “An Evening of Inspirational Word and Song,” a performance sponsored by The Shivers Fund at Pikes Peak Library District.

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Entertainment events to attend in and around Colorado Springs

Take a look at films opening this weekend.

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