By Barbara Falconer Newhall
Can’t decide whether to take in a modern art museum or go for a walk in the city? In Seattle, you can have it both ways — at a seven-year-old sculpture park along the city’s waterfront. For those who can’t get to Seattle, maybe these Olympic Sculpture Park photos will suffice.
When the park was completed in 2007, some locals protested that it took out too much of the gritty waterfront scene — an old streetcar barn in particular. But the Olympic Sculpture Park’s planners achieved something striking in the process: a nine-acre grass and concrete space that starts at water’s edge, spans a pair of old railroad tracks, leaps over a four- lane auto thoroughfare and ends with an events pavillion sporting big windows and a danceable floor.
Designed by the New York architectural firm Weiss / Manfredi, the park is a project of the Seattle Art Museum. The cost was $85 million, most of which was covered by private donors. From the
park’s lawns and sidewalks visitors can see Elliott Bay, the Olympic mountains, Mount Rainier, downtown Seattle, the Space Needle — and, of course, a collection of contemporary sculptures.
The sculptures are nice enough. The park itself — is genius. It’s a work of art. Go and spend some time there.
More photos of Teresita Fernandez’s magical glass shelter at “The Olympic Sculpture Park — An Artful Stroll on Seattle’s Waterfront.” Elsewhere in Seattle — “Dale Chihuly’s Glass — Fine Art, Kitsch or Both?”
