Extravagant wouldn’t be the right word today. Extravagant, only if you know the history of the place, if you use your imagination, and can picture a bygone era when rich oil wonks sat in a high rise penthouse on leather couches, smoking cigars and sipping Scotch, watching Cold War coverage on the color television that isn’t going anywhere, laughing and reminiscing about the good old days - hoping those good times never change. Extravagant is a description of what the fourteenth floor was one time over half a century ago, and the parties that were held there.

But not the grand opening party for the fourteenth floor workspace, and not Modworks, who occupies that space now. Simple, yet elegant, would be a better fit. Clean, smooth white walls with a splash of color here and there, glass panels from floor to ceiling, giving the space a sense of community, and a connection to the outside. Balconies all around which connect the space to the downtown business setting, to the stately Capitol on the hill, and the majestic snow-capped mountains rising to the west above the sprawling Denver metropolis.

Simple, yet elegant, is the furniture, built by the HON company for people to work on it, but also to tie the space together. Everything has a purpose, nothing is there just to look good, yet it does. It looks really good. Same as the party - the music was trendy but not over the top, the hors d'oeuvre selection was tasty but not too fancy, and the people were there to have a good time, but not expecting a black-tie gala. A ping pong net set up on a conference table provided friendly competition, and craft beer from the keg offered spirited refreshment.

Unlike the storied past of the penthouse - the onetime home of the Denver Petroleum Club and head wonks Kenneth King and Marvin Davis, the space today and the people inside it are obsessed with progress and innovation. Startups fill the offices and chairs, using computers with always-advancing programs to design always-advancing, and sustainable, products and services. Every little thing has its purpose, even that color television, if only to give a glimpse from the space’s modern existence back into its proud history.

It wasn’t just a party - it was thrown to introduce the world to the prize piece of Modworks ascent to the top of the Denver coworking community, because there’s nothing else like it. It was a celebration of progress, of modern architecture and interior workspace design, of how things are done now. On the surface, it looks like the space is full, full of people, of desks and businesses, a bustling workplace, but if you read between the lines, you can see that by design, there is room for change, for innovation, because the way things are done now will always include what’s next.

Even if we don’t know what “next” is, Modworks is built for it.