Central Presbyterian Church, Richardsonian Romanesque church in Downtown Denver, United States.
Central Presbyterian Church is a nearly square, four-tower church of Colorado sandstone laid in horizontal bands, built in 1891–92 to Frank E. Edbrooke's Richardsonian Romanesque design. Its sheer, unadorned walls rise to crossing gables of equal height and length, and the tower has long, thin lantern openings topped by ogee arches.
The building was designed by architect Frank E. Edbrooke in the late 1800s. Its recognition by the National Register of Historic Places reflects its importance as a landmark from that construction era.
The congregation was an offshoot of the First Presbyterian Church of Denver, organized in 1860 when Reverend A. T. Rankin advertised Presbyterian services in the Rocky Mountain News; it took the name Central Presbyterian in 1874. Since 2016 the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra has used the 1,000-seat sanctuary for concerts.
The church faces the corner of 17th Avenue and Sherman Street in downtown Denver, near the Colorado State Capitol. The sanctuary seats 1,000 and has been the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra's concert venue since 2016, so check its concert dates as well as worship times. The building was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1969.
The Historic American Buildings Survey documented the church in 1969, and art historian Richard Brettell called it spare, simple and coloristically unified. Its tower has long, thin lantern openings topped by ogee arches, and the Colorado sandstone is laid in horizontal bands like Richardson's later work.
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