Welcome to a Virtual Tour of the Mesa Lab Building Site at NCAR
This site is currently under construction
The Table Mesa site in southwest Boulder is the first of NCAR’s several locations, and the Mesa Laboratory located atop the mesa is home to three NCAR divisions, NCAR and UCAR administration offices, and NCAR’s public programs and exhibits.
The Mesa Laboratory was completed in 1966 and sits atop a 600-foot mesa above the city of Boulder, against the dramatic backdrop of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The architect selected to design the structure, I. M. Pei, achieved international acclaim for the design of the lab, which he based on an adaptation of the centuries-old Indian cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado.
Currently the Mesa Lab houses several science divisions, among them the Atmospheric Chemistry Division, the Climate and Global Dynamics Division, and the Scientific Computing Division.
Because of the prominence of its architecture and the generosity of the citizens of Boulder, who voted in 1961 to allow NCAR/UCAR be the one permanent building site on land otherwise dedicated to open space, NCAR is pleased to welcome local and distant visitors alike to the site every day of the year. The mile-long road that runs through a meadow to the top of the mesa and the surrounding trails are also accessible to walkers, hikers, and runners, many of whom take regular advantage of the opportunity. The site also has one of the few wheelchair-accessible outdoor trails in the area, the Walter Orr Roberts Weather Trail, located just west of the building.
