The NCAR Mesa Lab: I. M. Pei and the Anasazi Connection
Near Boulder, Colorado
On the flat top of Table Mesa, at the southern edge of Boulder, there is a building that looks like it grew from the rock rather than was placed upon it. The concrete is pinkish-tan, rough-hammered to give it texture, and the towers and walls step and jut in ways that suggest something ancient and intentional. The National Center for Atmospheric Research Mesa Laboratory was designed by I. M. Pei, completed in nineteen sixty-six, and dedicated in nineteen sixty-seven. It was his first project outside of urban high-rise work.
Pei spent considerable time studying the Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, the same people who built Cliff Palace and the other great stone villages into the canyon walls of southwestern Colorado. He used that architecture as a template: the bush-hammering of the concrete, the maze-like internal arrangement meant to encourage chance encounters between scientists, the choice of a local pinkish aggregate so the building would read as part of the landscape rather than an intrusion on it.
The lab won the Laboratory of the Year award from Industrial Research Magazine in nineteen sixty-seven. The Colorado chapter of the American Institute of Architects gave it a twenty-five year award in nineteen ninety-seven, recognizing buildings that have aged well and continue to serve their communities.
Inside, researchers study the atmosphere, its chemistry, its dynamics, its relationship to climate. Outside, Pei's towers catch the light differently at each hour of the day. The building is open to the public, and the view from the mesa takes in the full length of the Front Range, from Pikes Peak in the south to Longs Peak in the north.
