Pagosa Springs, Colorado, is a tourist town, and we want to encourage our visitors to stop downtown and admire the scenery…and our shops. Pagosa Springs also has a rich heritage and tradition as a Western, Mountain town, far from fancy modern steel and glass stylish architecture.
The Town this last year dropped a pretty penny replacing the Overlook deck structure thingy along the river, above the hot springs (after which Pagosa Springs is named), in the heart of downtown. A local architect designed the fancy, and he’s a good guy. But I struggle to see any local context in this modern masterpiece. The local Historic Preservation Board review committee asked to participate in the design review and were quickly alienated by the Town fathers–the parking overlook is not technically part of the downtown Historic District, but it certainly felt like the centerpiece of the Historic District.
Instead, we get not-so-cheap and easy modernism. It’s not bad, just an amazing opportunity lost.
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STrib
The Economist