S. ARTHUR AXTENS ARCHITECTURAL RECORDS

Stephen Arthur Axtens was born June 4, 1895 in Garden City, Kansas. He graduated from Garden City High School in 1913. From September 1913 to June 1916 he attended the Agricultural College of Colorado, in Fort Collins, later known as Colorado State University. From March 1917 to August 1918 he attended Colorado State Teachers College, now the University of Northern Colorado, in nearby Greeley, where he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in industrial arts.

On August 30, 1919, Axtens married a teacher, Lucinda Farnsworth, of Denver. In 1920, he taught school in Boulder, Colorado. In January 1924, he received his Colorado architects license. Between 1919 and 1927 Axtens was employed by various architects in Denver, San Francisco, and Oakland as an architectural draftsman, engineer, and construction superintendent. Some drawings reflect his participation in architecture classes at Atelier Denver, and the School of Architecture at the University of California, but no records have been found of a degree granted by any institution. He received his California architects license in April 1926.

Axtens opened a private architecture and engineering practice in Denver in 1927. He maintained his practice until May 1942. He received his Colorado engineers license in August 1943 while working as a structural consultant for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Denver District Office. He resumed his Denver private practice in March 1944.

Axtens designed a variety of Denver buildings, many for the Colorado Women's College. He also designed residences, apartment houses, and office buildings. Greatly affected by the threat of nuclear war, in the foreword to his book Thirty Years of Architecture & Engineering 1927-1957, he ridiculed the use of construction materials including "brick, stone and tile, since they cannot resist lateral forces of large magnitude."

His architectural solution to the destructive force of nuclear bombs was epitomized in the Farmers Union Building, which he designed in 1952. Its square, somewhat squat design made it very stable, and with no large windows it was touted as providing "atom-bomb proof offices." Surrounded by tons of concrete, its windowless inner tower would serve as a bomb shelter. Excavation began in April 1953, and the first tenant moved in on the last day of 1954. Located at 1575 Sherman Street in Denver, its open office area featured "specially designed partition units" which may have been the forerunner to the now ubiquitous cubicle. The State of Colorado bought the building in 1969 to house the State Social Services.

Axtens continued to work as an architect and structural engineer. In 1967, at the age of 71, he was still actively seeking employment: "I am not interested in 'fringe benefits', I am interested in being useful, I enjoy my work." Axtens died in April 1976.