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THE MILE HIGH CITY WELCOMES YOU!
Natural beauty. Urban energy.
Whether you’ve lived in Denver your whole life or you’re making the big move to attend RMCAD, you’re likely to fall in love with the area’s natural beauty, bountiful outdoor adventures, and incredible urban amenities.
Denver is among America’s largest cities, but it offers so much more than just a downtown city life. Blending peaks and plains with city and wilderness, there’s nothing you won’t find here. The RMCAD campus is tucked along the outskirts of Denver, ideally located between downtown and the foothills.
Just 10 minutes to the east, you’ll find yourself standing amid the skyscrapers, clubs, restaurants, and galleries of the vibrant city; or take a short drive to the west and you’ll experience the jaw-dropping beauty of the Rocky Mountain foothills. There, scattered among the 14,000-foot peaks of the Colorado Rockies and conifer and aspen forests, you’ll discover cozy mountain villages and thriving resort towns.
To explore a few of our favorite photos of Denver and Colorado, check out our Pinterest page, or check out information from the local experts:
What’s an art and design school without an amazing local art scene? RMCAD students quickly discover that our city offers a thriving mix of visual and performing arts. Here are just a few of the city’s cultural highlights:
The Denver Art Museum (DAM)
The DAM complex includes collection gallery space, three temporary exhibition venues, and the Lewis I. Sharp Auditorium. Opened in 2006, the Hamilton Building addition was designed by famed architect Daniel Liebskind. And beyond its vast array of art collections, the DAM has received critical acclaim for encouraging art appreciation through interactive means.
Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA)
MCA is an innovative forum that inspires and challenges all audiences and generates a dialogue about the art of our time. British architect David Adjaye designed the new and striking MCA building right in the heart of the LoDo district.
Explore Denver's Galleries: First Fridays
Denver boasts more than 120 commercial art galleries representing regional, national, and international artists of all genres, from western to contemporary. Santa Fe Drive, just south of downtown Denver, is a favorite neighborhood for gallery hopping. Check out a free gallery crawl on the first Friday evening of each month. RMCAD students and faculty members routinely show their work in these venues.
Denver Public Art Program
Whenever the City of Denver spends more than $1 million on any capital improvement project, 1% of the total budget goes toward integrating public artwork into the design. So with our new bridges, buildings, and highways come world-class sculptures, murals, and other installations—more than 300 works of art with new pieces popping up all over the city every year. Notable works include sculptures by Fernando Botero, Sol LeWitt, Claes Oldenberg, Robert Mangold, and Donald Lipski. Learn more about the Denver Public Art Program.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
Few experiences can match a summer concert at Red Rocks. With Mother Nature as the architect, Red Rocks is a geologically formed, open-air amphitheatre that is not duplicated anywhere in the world. A trip to Red Rocks should be considered an essential Colorado experience. If you’re coming for an open house or campus tour, you may want to check out the concert schedule before booking your trip.
The Denver Performing Arts Complex (DPAC)
One of the largest arts complexes in the world, DPAC features ten individual performance spaces connected by an 80-foot-tall glass roof. Located in downtown Denver, DPAC is a four-block, 12-acre site that is home to a Tony Award-winning theater company, Broadway touring productions, contemporary dance and ballet, incredible chorales, a symphony orchestra, and an internationally acclaimed opera house.
