The new Art Deco “movie theater” in Lakewood, Colo., won’t be showing the Cat in the Hat—or any other feature film. OZ Architecture designed the new 9,090-square-foot Heritage Center visitor’s center as “a contemporary integration of Art Deco” in response to the city’s request to go back to its glamorous roots. “The streamline Art Deco style was once common along Colfax, the place where Lakewood grew up and its lifeline to the region,” says Paul Trementozzi, AIA, principal-in-charge of the $1.8-million project for OZ Architecture.

Located in a city park at the former estate of Denver Post heiress May Bonfils Stanton Berryman, the visitor center will serve as the gateway to several other examples of the city’s Art Deco heritage, including the White Way Diner and Gil & Ethel’s drugstore/beauty parlor, which have been moved or preserved in place. These examples of historic architecture, the architects note, are on the pedestrian way (designed by Shapins Associates, Boulder) leading to the new building. “The visitor center helps interpret the history of Belmar Park and of the structures Lakewood moved to this site to save them from demolition,” Trementozzi adds.

The building houses two exhibit galleries, a gift shop, ticket and volunteer offices, a multipurpose room available for public use, a classroom, and a catering kitchen. Its first exhibit, featuring works by one of Lakewood’s own artists, will run through the spring. Commission and architects seem to have been a good match: “OZ is dedicated to designing buildings that express sense of place while improving their communities,” Trementozzi sums up.

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