City Beautiful 2.0 opens this Friday in Denver, with a unique experience planned for the McNichols building, featuring a new amazing art environment in Denver. Create Denver has redesigned a portion of the McNichols Civic Center Building as a creative installation and flexible coworking space, which will be on display May 10-June 23 as part of the City Beautiful 2.0 project.

City Beautiful 2.0 opens on Friday, May 10 from 5-8 p.m. and celebrates the civic and community engagement ideals of the City Beautiful Movement, first championed in Denver in 1904 by former Mayor Robert Speer. The installation includes architectural renderings of the Civic Center’s built environment, textiles, and the natural elements of the park.

The project also includes a co-working space, featuring custom, mobile furniture created by local artists that is free and open for use during normal McNichols Building hours (10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday-Sunday).

“Create Denver is helping to establish the McNichols Building as cultural hub for the city – and we’re officially retiring Create Denver Week so that we can help bring year-round programming and exhibitions to the building,” said Create Denver program manager Lisa Gedgaudas.

“We’ve experimented with the use of space in the building, and we’ve come up with place that will give Denver’s creatives, entrepreneurs, residents and visitors a chance to experience a co-working environment, and that will hopefully generate more ideas on how to integrate the building with its surrounding built environment.”

Celebrate the beginning of summer on Friday, June 21 from 2-10 p.m. at the McNichols Building and surrounding Civic Center Park. There will be activities such as ping pong, gardening, yoga, picnics and food trucks. A 3-D video mapping display of the history and future evolution of the McNichols Building by Legwork Studio & Ceavco Audio Visual will be projected on the back of the building around 9 p.m.

Artists and collaborators contributing to the City Beautiful 2.0 include: Eric Robert Dallimore (Leon), Lauri Lynnxe Murphy, Matt Scobey (New Yard), Corbin Clay (Azure Furniture), Ethan Jackson, Scott Bennett (Housefish), Jonathan Lamb &Michael Ortiz (Like Minded), Matt FaJohn, Aaron Ray (Legwork Studio), Rick Griffith (MATTER), Kevin Kerndt (Kerndt Design), Amy Fisk (Exponent Communications), Jared David Paul Anderson (JDP Art Services), Public Coffee, Ceavco Audio Visuals, New Earth Green Depot, and Design Practice LLC.

Create Denver strengthens the overall health and vitality of Denver by supporting the growth and development of the Creative Sector, including artists and enterprises such as film, music, fine art, galleries, art districts, fashion and design.

Create Denver provides a series of programs and happenings that showcases Denver’s talented and dynamic creative community, recognizes the creative sector for making Denver vibrant and economically vital, catalyzes the community to become a cohesive collective, and supports the creative community by providing educational programming, inspirational dialogue, placemaking and ideation.

Denver Arts & Venues seeks to enhance Denver’s quality of life and economic vitality through premier public venues, artwork and entertainment opportunities. The agency operates some of the region’s highest-profile facilities including Red Rocks Amphitheatre, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, Colorado Convention Center and Denver Coliseum. Arts & Venues also oversees Denver’s public art program, economic development programs including Create Denver, literacy programs such as One Book, One Denver, and entertainment and cultural events such as the Five Points Jazz Festival.