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S. ARTHUR AXTENS (1895-1976)
Arthur Axtens, was born in 1895 in Garden City, Kansas. He attended the Agricultural College of Colorado, in Fort Collins, later known as Colorado State University. He later attended the Colorado State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley, where he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in industrial arts. He received his Colorado architects license in 1924, and was employed by various architects as an architectural draftsman, engineer, and construction superintendent, before opening his own Denver practice in 1927. In August 1943, Axtens earned his Colorado engineers license while working as a structural consultant for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Denver District Office. Axtens designed in revival and modern styles. As both an architect and engineer he was particularly sensitive to designing with construction materials that could resist lateral forces of large magnitude caused by nuclear bombs. Axtens died in April 1976.
Selected Works:
Farmers Union Building, 1955 (visible behind the construction)
The Farmers Union Building was designed in 1952 by architect Arthur Axtens. The building epitomizes Axtens architectural solution to the destructive force of nuclear bombs. It has a square, somewhat squat design, making it very stable. There are no large windows, instead the exterior walls of the highrise were cast monolithic with the floor to form a continuous deep girder around the building at each floor level. It has a windowless inner tower which would serve as a bomb shelter. Axten described the building as a “demonstration of efficiency, strength, beauty, and economy.” The State of Colorado bought the building in 1969 to house the State Social Services.
100 Colorado Boulevard, 1941/1960 Addition
In the 1930s, Epiphany Episcopal Church relocated from it’s circa 1895 spot of inception to its current location at 1st Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. Architect S. Arthur Axtens’ 1941 stone-studded church, with its distinctive square tower and nave, is a Denver landmark built on one of the highest points in the city. It exhibits contemporary cubic form typical of the Art Deco style. In 1960, architect Walter Simon created the two-floor addition (notable for its use of unique precast panels) which contains a Parish House, chapel, baptismal font, choir loft, 12 classrooms, a kitchen, sexton’s quarters and a meeting hall named for Amy Russell, the Hilltop resident who had donated the property. It was Russell’s son, a 1930s Epiphany minister, whose fundraising efforts led to the building of this, one of Hilltop’s most excellent examples of Art Deco/Moderne architecture.
