Seattle Art Museum Venturi Scott Brown and Associates

100 University Street
Downtown, Seattle, WA 98101-2902

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Overview

The world-renowned Post-Modernist architectural business firm of Venturi, Rauch and Scott Dark-brown created the pattern for this 2d Seattle Art Museum, designed for a highly visible site on 1st Artery in Seattle's Downtown. Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brownish, of Philadelphia, PA, worked with the respected Seattle architectural firm, Olson Sundberg, well-known for their buildings housing art. The edifice had a "complex and contradictory" aesthetic, making decorative allusions to various architectural vocabularies, and had supergraphics that derived from Venturi'south Popular Art-influenced works of the 1960s.

Building History

This second, Downtown Seattle facility, designed by Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown, opened on 12/05/1991. Illsley Ball Nordstrom (built-in 04/11/1912 in Walla Walla, WA-d. 01/xviii/1996 in Seattle, WA), widow of Nordstrom executive, Lloyd Nordstrom (d. 1976), donated $2 meg for the evolution of the new Seattle Fine art Museum in 1990.

The master galleries on floors two through four provided a 300% increase in flooring space for permanent collections compared to the original art museum in Volunteer Park. According to a feature on architect Denise Scott Brown, the Seattle Museum gallery plans diverged from the prevailing trends of the 1990s: "The idea backside the pattern was non to conform to the current trend of museum as 'articulated pavilions' but to an older tradition of museums every bit generic loft spaces, for instance the adapted palaces and grand museums of the 19th century and New York's original Museum of Mod Art. A thousand staircase displays sculptures and connects the exhibition spaces, which were specifically designed to adjust a variety of periods and types of art." (See Google.com, Google Arts and Culture, "The Era-Defining Work of Denise Scott Chocolate-brown," accessed 12/18/2018.)

The University Street facade characteristic an undulating wall faced in limestone into which was incised in large letters, "Seattle Art Museum." At ground level, an arcade of arched, triangular and ogee-biconvex openings stepped upwardly the steep course along Academy Street The architects trimmed the voussoirs of each of these arches in variously colored granite, marble and terracotta pieces.

Building Notes

The Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown building contained approximately 150,000 square anxiety, of which 45,000 were defended to gallery space.

The exterior of the museum featured Venturi's familiar super-graphics and the exaggerated, ironic use of ornamentation typical of Post-Modern blueprint. The edifice's main creative stroke was Venturi and Scott Brown's "art ladder," a stairway on its southward side that created a processional motility toward the inner sanctum of the galleries. The art ladder was punctuated on both ends by Ming Dynasty sculptures which human action as guardians of the fine art sanctuary. It paralleled a similarly stepped walkway lining University Avenue on the exterior. The museum'south first (main) floor also had a large lobby on its southwest corner, expanded museum shop on its northwest corner, an auditorium on the north side, and, on the sotheast corner, a children's activity room, and smaller meeting spaces. A key, mezzanine dining surface area was planned between the main and second floors. Gallery spaces stretched beyond most of the second, third and fourth floors. The second floor gallery space was intended for traveling exhibitions. On the second flooring's northeast corner was a delivery room for trucks. The height floor was given over to administrative offices.

A 1989 Seattle Times article on the revival of utilise of colorful terra cotta in buildings featured the Seattle Museum of Fine art #2. Author Marsha King quoted several gimmicky architects, including Robert Venturi, on the renewed relevance of the material for designers: "'The idea of actually decorating a building was idea to be decadent,' says Portland builder Robert Frasca. `Terra cotta, with its neoclassical references, was sort of swept away.' Merely of belatedly, every bit the built earth looks more than and more the same, the public yearns for cities that stand out from one another. And architects want more than expressive materials than marble, steel and stone. Terra cotta can be an reply. In small ways it'southward making a comeback here and across the state not but in the restoration of historic structures, but every bit a viable material in new structure besides. `There is a new involvement in color and ornamentation on buildings,' says Robert Venturi, builder for Seattle'south downtown Art Museum. `So naturally terra cotta is coming dorsum. Information technology's a beautiful way of getting color through a durable but light material.' Venturi has designed a scheme of hand-pressed terracotta in five colors - black, yellow, white, dark-green and blue - as a jewel-similar emphasis on the otherwise masonry-clad art museum. Exact shades oasis't been selected.`Information technology's our way of getting touches of vivid color. You tin can't get colors that vivid from natural materials,' he says." (Meet Marsha King, "Feats of Clay--Architects Turn Back to Terra Cotta to Bring Brilliant Colors to Buildings," Seattle Times, 03/12/1989, p. L1.)

The Seattle Art Commission and the Museum Development Authority jointly deputed the Los Angeles/Maine artist, Jonathan Borofsky (built-in 12/24/1943 in Boston, MA), to design a $450,000 big metallic sculpture to place on the Seattle Art Museum's southwest corner. The 11-ton slice, "Hammering Man," depicted a workman with a movable arm that hammered and was conceived to honour American workers. During its installation on Sat, 09/28/1991 by the Mobile Crane Company, a strap used by a crane to hoist the sculpture from its commitment truck broke, causing the Hammering Human to drop onto the pavement, damaging it and surrounding objects. The Seattle Times described the incident: "The sculpture was simply a foot off the ground when information technology fell. The bottom edge slammed into the pavement with a loud bang. The sculpture then teetered against one the cranes. Bystanders ran out of the way. The crane blast then buckled and fell across the sculpture'south head and the hammer-holding arm. A 2d mobile crane was used to steady the sculpture and the damaged boom while workers tried to figure out what to do. The sculpture dropped to the street, its heavy steel anxiety gouging holes in the pavement, then brutal across the meridian of the crate operator'southward cab. The crane operator was hale."

Seattle Times writer Bob Lane also commented: "The sculpture's fall was even so another problem for the new fine art museum. Its opening has been delayed past construction problems, and the museum's contractor has asked for more money, because of the complex nature of the building designby historic builder Robert Venturi." (See Bob Lane, "'Crashing Human being,'" Seattle Times/Seattle Postal service-Intelligencer, 09/29/1981, p. B1.) Noted lensman, John Stamets (d. 0608/2014 in Seattle, WA), a lecturer in photography at the University of Washington, documented the scene, and one of his images was used to illustrate the 09/29/1991 story.

PCAD id: 3302

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Publications

Architecture for Art American Art Museums 1938-2008, 170-173, 2004. "SAM grows up", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, F1-F8, 05/04/2007. Cheek, Lawrence W., "Look inside the box", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, F3, 05/04/2007. Hackett, Regina, "Museum sculpture crashes", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, C4, 1991-09-30. Farr, Sheila, "The history of museums: a history of our times", Seattle Times, Male monarch, Marsha, "Feats of Clay--Architects Turn Back to Terra Cotta to Bring Vivid Colors to Buildings", Seattle Times, L1, 1989-03-12.

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Source: https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/3302/

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