Where is Denver’s Chinatown?
Assistant Professor Leyuan Li’s Studio Addresses a Missing Piece of Denver’s History
CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning students and Assistant Professor Leyuan Li are helping the community learn about the once-thriving Denver Chinatown and what happened to it. Through a History Colorado and Colorado Asian Pacific United collaboration, the students were able to help with an exhibit that looks back and opens the possibilities for a future Chinatown.
The project was a hands-on learning opportunity and a service to the broader Denver community. But for some students it meant much more.
“As a Chinese American growing up in a predominantly white area of Colorado, I never quite felt like I belonged here,” said Molly Rose Merkert, Master of Architecture and Master of Science in Historic Preservation student. “When I was younger, I longed to move to places with thriving Chinatowns. But learning that Denver had a Chinatown at one point has changed that. Working on this exhibit has connected me to Denver’s Chinese community and has made Colorado feel more like home.”
Merkert worked alongside History Colorado, CAPU, and the descendants of the Lung family on the overall progression of the exhibit.
Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, and Reimagined
Where is Denver’s Chinatown? Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, Reimagined is an exhibition in collaboration with History Colorado, Colorado Asian Pacific United (CAPU), and Assistant Professor Leyuan Li at the College of Architecture and Planning (CAP) at CU Denver.
The exhibition features a series of installations and graphics designed by Li and his team. It also showcases drawings and models produced by CAP students from Li’s Fall 2023 undergraduate architecture studio titled “The Suppressed Interior” to represent their ideas for repurposing existing buildings in the former Chinatown neighborhood and proposing spatial possibilities for Denver’s future Chinatown. These endeavors intend to raise public awareness of Denver’s erased Chinatown.
Denver’s Chinatown: Past, Present, and Future
Denver was once home to the largest Chinatown in the American West. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, Colorado’s Chinese population built a community in what we now know as Denver’s Lower Downtown (LoDo) district. As the community began to flourish, the Anti-Chinese Riot of 1880 led to widespread racism and the implementation of nationwide laws that placed restrictions on immigration and opportunities for Chinese residents. Denver demolished its Chinatown in the 1940s.
Today, the City of Denver is working to address the untold history of Denver’s Chinatown, shed light on the truth of the city’s past, and embrace present and future generations of Chinese Americans, ensuring a future as a cultural district dedicated to Colorado’s AANHPI communities.
Where is Denver’s Chinatown? Stories Remembered, Reclaimed, and Reimagined invites visitors to experience Denver’s thriving Chinese community through local, historic family photographs, objects, artifacts from the History Colorado collection, a portrayal of a typical home, and artistic re-imaginings of the neighborhood.
The Suppressed Interior
Li’s Fall 2023 undergraduate architecture studio, “The Suppressed Interior,” was a precursor to the exhibition, which will be open at History Colorado through August 2025. The goal of this studio was to unearth Denver’s erased Chinatown, located between Wazee and Market streets and between 15th and 20th streets.
“[The exhibition] tackles cultural and human rights issues present all around the world while also asking the students of this project existential questions such as, ‘What is the suppressed interior, and how should it be approached?’” said Brandon Wunder, a Bachelor of Science in Architecture student.
Wunder, who served as the fabrication coordinator, was responsible for producing and detailing the historic and future models used in the exhibition. He also collaborated with the fabrication team at History Colorado to fabricate the structures that occupy the space, including the central “room” structure, which is the conceptual equivalent to the installation “Spatial Archive” he worked on during his Fall 2023 architecture studio.
The CU Denver Art and Humanities Grant and support from the CU Denver Department of Architecture made the studio work featured in Where is Denver’s Chinatown? possible.
Bachelor of Science in Architecture student Trevor Motzko not only participated in Li’s undergraduate studio but also assisted with designing the exhibition panels, graphic elements, posters, and the layout of the History Colorado exhibition. “I was part of Leyuan Li’s undergraduate Studio V class that developed the project. Then I transitioned into the role of graphic design consultant on the project with History Colorado,” Motzko said. “I felt very fortunate to be a part of this project. Seeing it move from concept to reality was empowering. Not only that, but this project told the story of people’s lives.”
Rediscovering Denver’s Chinatown
“Two years ago, when I just moved to Denver, I asked myself, as one of the rapidly growing cities in the country, where is Denver’s Chinatown?” Said Li. “To better understand this silenced history, in my course, I guided students to comb through historical documents and archives, and later on design architectural drawings and models that revision tools of revitalizing the former Chinatown neighborhood.”
“At the same time, with the support of Professor William Wei at CU Boulder, I connected with Joie at the Colorado Asian Pacific United, and Jason, Sam, Josie, Abby, Kim, and many others at History Colorado,” continued Li. “We were very interested in collaborating on a public exhibition that foregrounds all the work we have been doing to tell the hidden stories of Denver’s Chinatown. Through collaboration with History Colorado and CAPU — and thanks to the valuable support we have received from CU Denver and CU — we now have an exhibition that allows visitors to appreciate the history of Denver’s Chinatown while envisioning its future.”
“As conflicting sites of labor, immigration, culture, race, and identity, the future of Chinatowns sits at the constant influx of environmental, social, and political dissonance that destabilizes the production of a healthy, shared community for constituencies inhabiting within. What are the possible futures for Chinatowns amidst the context of gentrification emergencies and collective crises? What are the practices of social justice that remain unseen and underrepresented in the architectural discipline?” Said Li. “In response to these questions, it is imperative that we, as architects and educators, are committed to promoting the civil and social value of architecture, guiding our students to understand the agency of architecture as a form of advocacy to confront spatial injustices and empower historically underrepresented communities.”
“I hope the exhibition instigates conversations regarding histories that are overlooked or untold,” said Hannah Drummond, a Bachelor of Science in Architecture student. Drummond also assisted with the exhibition’s curation and worked on the project’s graphics team. “I hope that it inspires visitors to connect with their own heritage and stories as well.”
CU Denver’s Inclusive Excellence Initiative Grant, CU President’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Grant, and CU President’s Teaching Scholars Program Timmerhaus Fund Ambassadors made the exhibition possible.
View Images from the Exhibition Opening at History Colorado.
About Assistant Professor Leyuan Li
Leyuan Li is a Chinese architect, educator, and researcher whose professional and academic work focuses on interior and urban realms in the articulation of spaces and societies. He is an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Colorado Denver and was a visiting assistant professor of architecture with an emphasis on issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at the same institution. He is the founder of Office for Roundtable, a collaborative practice that explores spaces and events of sharing among diverse communities to create collective narratives.
Li’s research and creative projects investigate the medium of the interior as the infrastructure of care and collectivity to confront the injustices of our urban landscapes, examining ecological, political, and social issues in the context of the living crisis, particularly related to food insecurity, housing shortages, and community displacement.
His work has been published in journals and books, including PLAT, New York Review of Architecture, and Drawing Codes (AR+D, 2023), and has been featured at prestigious academic venues, including the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing (2017), the Citygroup Gallery in New York City (2022), the 9th Bi-City Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Shenzhen (2023), the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture Conference in Denver (2023), the FEI Arts Gallery in Guangzhou (2024), and the History Colorado Center in Denver (2024). Most recently, the housing studio he developed with José Ibarra has been awarded the 2024 AIA/ACSA Housing Design Education Award. Li is the faculty advisor for AIAS and NOMAS at the University of Colorado Denver. He currently serves as the 2024-2027 ACSA Liaison to the AIAS Board.