The Denver Art Museum Explores Nature’s Eternal Sway over Architecture and Design

“The concept of biophilia is especially relevant today due to the increasingly urban and digital world we live in and our consequent detachment from the natural world,” says Darrin Alfred, DAM curator of architecture and design. “As tragic as the COVID-19 pandemic was, it dramatically increased public awareness of the profound human need for nature and added a greater sense of urgency to connect our communities with nature.”

Colorado’s dramatically varied landscape and the museum’s extensive decorative art and design collection serve as the perfect backdrop for this exhibit. The show is divided into three subsections addressing nature’s influence on patterns—even in a digital context—inherent processes, and its ability to define our emotional connections to place. 

Presented in the “Natural Analogs” section, Nervous System’s Floraform Chandelier takes its shape through differential growth. On view under the “Natural Systems” banner, Studio Drift’s famous kinetic Meadow sculpture evokes the budding of flowers. In the “Topophilia” section, Terrol Dew Johnson—a Tohono O’odham artist—teamed up with design studio Aranda\Lasch on Desert Paper. The project distills the rich material history of the Sonoran Desert as a manifestation of the links between land, resources, and Indigenous know-how. Overall, Biophilia: Nature Reimagined reveals the scope in which nature’s impact on the creative process is continually harnessed and reinterpreted. 

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• Cultural

• Adrian Madlener
• Biophilia
• Biophilic Design
• Denver Art Museum