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I'm getting through some of the quality contributions and thought I would contribute some architectural opinions on my city. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so maybe I'll just list some buildings.
There's nothing quite like this picture to get the discussion of architecture going.
The Experience Music Project (now Museum of Pop Culture) was built by Gehry in 2000 at the prompting of Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen. It is generally considered to be an eyesore. The interior of the building is great, but the exterior looks like a scrap heap.
The Space Needle was built in 1962 for the World's Fair by John Graham Jr., or possibly Victor Steinbrueck. It is generally considered to be iconic. It is the northern-most feature of the Seattle Skyline, and the MoPop sits at its feet. Everybody loves it, and it has style and grace.
The Space Needle was the tallest building in Washington at the time it was completed, surpassing the Smith Tower, which is also considered to be iconic. It is the southern-most skyscraper in the Seattle skyline, and the city has continued to protect its status as a visible landmark. Very neoclassical, and I love it to death. If only I had $17k per month, I'd live in the penthouse, although I've never been inside.
The current tallest building in Seattle is the Columbia Tower (1985), aka Darth Vader building. It is generally not considered at all.
Contemporaneously to the EMP being built, the Seattle Central Library (2002) was also constructed. This has a better reputation that the EMP, but it is confusing inside and not particularly well laid out. It looks like steel and glass from the outside, all angles and cantilevers. I compare it dis-favorably to Suzzallo Libray, located on the UW campus. That one was 1936, so two decades after the Smith Tower.
The Rainier Tower (1977) is your favorite architect's favorite building. It's got a tapered base that is striking, but beyond that is a big concrete and glass rectangle. It now has a neighbor, the second-tallest building in Seattle, the Rainier Square Tower (2020). Overall the two of them look good together, but are very, very modern.
Approaching Seattle from the north, you can see the Pacific Tower. It sits on top of a hill, and it's Art Deco, and it's surrounded by trees. Of course it's my favorite building in Seattle. It was Amazon's HQ until 2010. Tell me this isn't what you want out of a public building, and I'll call you a liar.
Approaching Seattle from the south, before you get to the Smith Tower, you see the Old Rainier Brewery. It used to have a T for Tully's coffee. Thank god they put the R back on there. This building is purely industrial, but due to the boxy shape, prominence from the South, and iconic R, it became a landmark.
So what do I make of all this? Do I have architectural taste? Or did I simply accept the things that were there when I was born, and reject the ones that weren't? The Smith Tower, Pacific Tower, and Suzzalo are throwbacks to a pre-war style. The Space Needle is truly a space-age style, which is in stark contrast the the preceding three, but I don't mind it one bit. The MoPOP/EMP is ugly, and I don't like it, but there are plenty who will agree with me on the first part but like it because it's ugly. I think they used to call that baroque. There are good-bad movies, can there be good-bad buildings? Finally, we have the rectangles of glass, and other interesting shapes of glass. Columbia Tower, both Rainier buildings, and most of the big skyscrapers I won't bother mentioning are of this type, the modern, the sleek. Really, the inoffensive, stainless steel appliance of architecture.
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