The Denver Art Museum's new wing is like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle strewn on a table, waiting to be assembled.

Some of the pieces:

• It's still unknown how much the 146,000-square-foot wing will cost, though money in hand would suggest a price of at least $70 million.

• Museum officials won't say how much they have raised (or want to raise) in a capital campaign to augment bond money approved by Denver voters in 1999.

• There isn't a precise start date for construction, other than late June or early July.

• The opening date - first 2004, then 2005 - now hovers in 2006.

Other details also are not clear, including what name the new wing will bear. And the complexity of the process appears to have made a deep impression, as builders seek solutions upfront to keep construction snags to a minimum.

But as the museum's director and board prepare for a dedication and groundbreaking Wednesday, one thing is certain: Architect Daniel Libeskind will move to New York and will be enmeshed in the process of replacing the World Trade Center, which, in his own words, could take "10 to 12 years, who knows?"

Still, Libeskind said, there should be no surprise about the new addition's intricacy, and there should also be no grave concern.

"This is normal for a building that is not straightforward," said the architect. "It's on target."

As is the design, said Libeskind, who will attend the dedication, which will include remarks by Mayor Wellington Webb - but no turning of dirt.

"There has been some adjustment in the evolution of the design," Libeskind said last week from Berlin. "But I've tried to keep as close as possible to what the public has seen."

What the public has seen is an angular structure that appears to be sending out shard-like petals. The new wing will be clad in titanium hung on hundreds of individually fabricated, bolted-together steel beams, topped by large expanses of glass. Heights will range from 75 feet to 110 feet. The walkway connecting the new Libeskind wing to the existing Denver Art Museum, Gio Ponti's gray glass tile tower, will be covered in zinc.

"The most difficult thing is to go from the drawings to the reality of the building," Libeskind acknowledged. "It's one thing to draw it, it's another that someone can construct it."

That becomes clear when looking at hundreds of construction documents, including a computer full of images that show how a multitude of beams will be fabricated, bolted together, brought to the site and assembled.

"Steel is the critical trade. It sets the geometry and the structure of the building," said Brit Probst of Davis Partnership. The firm has partnered with Libes-kind to design and build not only the wing but the adjacent co-development project.

As the steel is being fabricated, "we're physically describing the connection details," Probst said. "It's a job that will take over a year."

Though an adjacent parking structure has opened, timing of the construction of retail and residential space and museum offices to wrap the garage (being organized by Mile High Development and designed by Libeskind) hinges on what happens on the wing's construction site.

A question that's emerged repeatedly since Feb. 27, when Libeskind won the commission for the World Trade Center site, has been how attentive he can be to the Denver project. The New York project keeps growing to include not just site and master planning but work on the train station, the cultural center, the memorial site, retail space and the spire that Libeskind calls the "1776 tower" for its proposed height and reference to a pivotal date in American history.

To get theoretical, how would Libeskind react if Denver came calling today to design a new museum wing?

Museum director Lewis Sharp has pondered that one: "If we were in that situation today? He'd probably be too busy."

Hearing that made Libeskind laugh. "I'd never be too busy for Denver. I was in love with Denver even before I was born."

Seriously: "They have been an exemplary client. It has been a fantastic team effort. I have the highest regard for Lewis and how he has taken the project through economic times that are not the easiest."

The museum's choice of Libeskind, though, has taken on a different cast.

"Denver took a chance on an architect with a serious academic reputation, not because of huge popular knowledge of his work," says Paul Goldberger, architectural critic for The New Yorker, who is working on a book on the trade center process.

"It doesn't change anything about the building itself, but it will be seen in a different way."

In essence: "Denver bet on the right horse. All the right reasons for choosing Libeskind haven't changed."

When chosen for the DAM job, Libeskind termed it "an American dream."

The Polish-born architect speaks often of his arrival in this country, in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Three years ago, the DAM was projected to be Libeskind's second commission built in this country, scheduled to open after the Jewish Museum San Francisco. Because of various delays, the San Francisco museum is on a back burner, making Denver's the first Libeskind project on the continent.

Now Berlin-based, Libeskind became an American citizen in 1965 and displayed a musical and mathematical prowess that augmented his growing role as a theoretical designer.

But he was not destined to remain a "paper" architect. His design for a museum in Germany devoted to the work of artist Felix Nussbaum, who died in the Holocaust, was followed by what turned out to be a career-making project: the Jewish Museum Berlin. It attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors long before an exhibition was in place.

A few months after snaring the Denver job, he showed off a site model that gave a clear indication of how he would translate planar surfaces into gallery space. By late December 2000, Libeskind and Davis Partnership had a contract with the city: $8.63 million to cover design and architectural services, including consultants for lighting, security and all the other facets of museum operation.

Which brings up the subject of money, which DAM officials have been leery about discussing of late - especially after trimming the museum's operating budget last August amid a sagging economy resistant to fund raising.

During the campaign to persuade Denver voters to approve $62.5 million in bonds for the project, the DAM board promised to raise $50 million in an endowment for the place. The amount has reached $57 million, with a goal of $70 million (in all, that would put the DAM in the $100 million endowment club).

A capital campaign to augment construction began quietly, no goal announced; the most recent financial documents show the museum has probably raised about $16 million or $17 million.

But some answers should become clear Wednesday, when officials are expected to announce campaign status and whose name the wing will bear. A knowledgeable bettor might toss out the name of Frederic Hamilton, veteran board member and the chairman who persuaded his peers to kick in that first $50 million. Hamilton also spearheaded the museum's first endowment campaign in the late 1980s, when the DAM had a cache of only about $1.2 million.

Sharp wouldn't comment, except to mention the importance of "the two Freds," Hamilton and longtime supporter Frederick Mayer.

"As difficult as the economy is in terms of raising money, I have never felt a greater commitment to a project," said Sharp, who calls the wing and adjacent buildings "an urban design project of enormous significance, even beyond this community.

"Foundations and individuals have seen this as more than an expansion of the Denver Art Museum," he said.

"The dedication is a chance to announce where we are and where we're going with the capital campaign and to use it as a leverage point to move ahead.

"We're going to raise the money to see that Daniel Libeskind's building is finished to the level the community deserves and that his first building in this country deserves."



Mary Voelz Chandler is the art and architecture critic. (303) 892-2677 or Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com.

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