Architectural Background

 

Completed in 1949, the ceiling of the Koshare Kiva is the largest self-supported log roof anywhere in the world. Six hundred and twenty logs, weighing over forty tons, span across a room sixty foot across and the roof is self-supporting. Architects claimed that such a log roof was impossible to construct, but that did not stop the roof from being built.

Architect Damon Runyon, an old Colorado College friend of Buck Burshears, volunteered to do the architectural drawings for the Kiva. Runyon, a distant cousin of the late Colorado journalist and author, Damon Runyon, was born on March 15, 1913 in Denver. During his career, he designed and built dams in the Rocky Mountains, bridges over the Mississippi River and dams, bridges and elecrical lines in Thailand and at U.S. military bases in southeast Asia, Guam and the Middle East.

He was most proud of the log roof of the Kiva that he designed in 1947. The roof of the circular Kiva, which is 60 feet in diameter, could have no supporting beams or interior supports.

An addition, in the late 1950s, gave the way to an expanded area for their growing group and art collection. Another addition, in 1979, added further museum exhibits. Construction, in 2002, brought the building up to code according to state and national laws.

In 1996, the Colorado Historic Society designated the Koshare Kiva a State Historic Building.