Seattle's Best Building

Exceptional works of art are a rare and treasured asset to the community. Exceptional architectural works are perhaps even rarer, as the uniting of the client’s needs, the architect’s vision, and the monies available to execute a design present an alignment of three often competing forces. Evoking both intellectual and emotional responses, exceptional architecture not only pushes the boundaries of a particular time or place’s qualities, but also inspires both hemispheres of the mind: the logical (structural/functional) and the artistic (beautiful/sensual). Capitol Hill is extremely fortunate to have such an exceptional architectural work, as it is not only world class but is also welcoming to the community. I write of the Chapel of Saint Ignatius  designed by internationally acclaimed New York (and Bremerton born) architect Steven Holl, on the Seattle University Campus. If you have yet to visit it I strongly encourage you to do so.

[caption id="attachment_1080" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Reflecting Pool"][/caption]

As an architect, I often visit or see photographs of a building and think to myself “hmm, if the architect had done this or that, the building would have really been great (or at least pretty good)". Even with such internationally lauded structures such as Seattle’s Central Library, I have such musings. With the Chapel, no presumption is possible. It is as close to a perfectly conceived, designed, and executed building you are likely to see anywhere, of any design approach, of any program, of any budget or size. Yes, it is that good, and it is right in our back yard.

[caption id="attachment_1091" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Chapel's Entry"][/caption]

The construction of the Chapel consists of tilt-up concrete for the walls and (what I assume to be) light-weight metal framing and zinc siding for the skylights. Tilt-up concrete’s typical use is for the construction of warehouses and industrial buildings, where it is utilized as simple, economically produced rectangular planes that are butted up one against another, providing both structure and enclosure. With the Chapel, the tilt-up panels are planar, yet have a fluid perimeter giving form to the many skylights. The zinc-clad infill framing forms both the curved  and flat planes between the tilt-up bookends. Additionally, the panels have over-lapping seams at the corners and the window openings, instead of being butt-jointed, furthering the expressive and probing design approach of the tilt-up; and, rather than being painted, the panels are stained with an integrated color giving them a deep, sensuous texture. While certainly more expensive and far more creative than a typical application, the tilt-up still remains within the traditional performance characteristics of a planar based, support and enclosure system.

[caption id="attachment_1088" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Entry Wall"][/caption]

I am hard pressed to think of another building that handles daylight in a more magical way than at the Chapel, where soaring skylights, cast glass windows, and concealed openings create mystery and beauty. Daylight is formed, not merely admitted into the space, and is bent by the will of the architect to support his concepts of space and place. Oftentimes screened, the contrast, the shadows, and the filtering of daylight that surrounds you is perhaps the building’s most intense experience, and unlike one you are likely to have anywhere else.

[caption id="attachment_1084" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Cast Glass Window in Entry Wall"][/caption]

The boldness of the building's exterior forms and materials are deftly balanced by an interior of subtle textures, which are skillfully manipulated by the above mentioned daylight. The cross-hatch patterning of the plaster walls, the cast glass windows with their random air bubbles and changes in hue, and the splendid, hand chiseled entry doors immerse one in a sensual world of material splendor. Seven hundred pounds of candle wax form the finish of the Sacristy, creating an otherworldly environment.

[caption id="attachment_1078" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Sacristy"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1127" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Candle-Wax Walls"][/caption]

The spatial quality of the Chapel is as exceptional as any of the above attributes. The curved planes of the ceiling, the light shrouds, and the skylights create the seemingly disparate qualities of intimacy and vastness. The repetitive planes, when seen assemble in perspective, layer the overall Chapel space, creating both extension and containment.

[caption id="attachment_1100" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Looking South Toward the Lobby from the Main Chapel"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1104" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Confessional"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1130" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Interior View Northwest"][/caption]

The evaluation and experience of art and architecture is of course personal. And while checklists can be seen as arbitrary or even naive when forming an opinion of a work of art – especially one that breaks ground in the many refreshing ways as does the Chapel -- I cannot help but think that the Chapel is one of those few buildings that so completely fills out my own list.

Let's Not Celebrate that Corner

An architect's desire to 'celebrate' a building's corner has become so defacto that she or he may be seen as some kind of subversive if they were to do otherwise.  My corner problem, as I call it, lies not so much with the intent of being expressive, but in its recent, almost universally poor execution. So much design effort is expended on corners today, that they have become buildings onto themselves, resulting in chaotic assemblages of parts reminiscent of Ms. Shelley's infamous antagonist, but in built form. Garish colors and materials, clumsy canopies, little hats for roofs, and shifts in the building plane (often all together) are common ingredients in this over-cooked entrée. To make matters worse, such celebratory excess is often couched in a building's need to be contextual (i.e. historical). The fact of the matter is that for hundreds of years most buildings were quite content to go about their business in a dignified manner, either blissfully ignorant of their proximate influences, or, if feeling a bit provocative doing a little something extra at the extremities. The goal was not to make the corner an end onto itself, but to make it a part of an overall design. [caption id="attachment_933" align="alignnone" width="661"] Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Chicago, IL (Source: Wikipedia)[/caption]

Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Chicago, IL (Source: Wikipedia)

There are, of course, great buildings whose excellence has not been diminished by a corner folly here or there; and, dare I say, have even been enhanced by them. Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott department store comes first to mind. Here, a gentle curve  of the same material that surrounds it, gently acknowledges its prime location. Another distinguishing feature of Mr. Sullivan's masterpiece is that of its window/structural bay expression going from horizontal to vertical, no doubt a recognition of the structural requirements needed to accomplish the move. Inspired by such a successful example, I set out on a grey January Sunday with camera in hand to see what local lessons on corner propriety could be discerned from our very own Capitol Hill, with the hope that not all buildings in the neighborhood suffer from the corner problem and that I may be able to document those that do not.

Certainly a corner does not a building make, and a couple of the buildings in the photos contained herein are part of rather uninspired design; however, those buildings have corners that are at least pretty good, and provide some thoughts as for strategies for designing an expressive corner (or not) for reasons other than an ungrounded and misguided nostalgia for buildings as they once were. The photos start from a working proposition that, to quote Hypocrites, first do no harm; or, at the very least, one should first aim for simplicity and only resort to rhetorical flourishes with discretion, forethought, and an understanding of the 'precedent' cited.

Agnes Lofts

Above, is Agnes Lofts, one of Capitol Hill's most recent (and best) mixed used buildings. The body of the building is so nicely executed, one wonders why change anything at the corner; thankfully, the accomplished architects at Weinstein A + U felt the same. Well done. Note also the nice subtractive bay modulation on the far left. Well done. Again!

The Velo Bikes building can be seen as a precedent to Agnes Lofts (or not -- your choice). Design a handsome edifice with beautiful terra cotta and generous windows, why change a thing at the corner? What could be a more appropriate approach (or more effective)?

[caption id="attachment_1006" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Seattle Central Community College Broadway Performance Hall[/caption]

At Seattle Central, we have a subtle, yet robust corner. If only more buildings had the confidence to rely on the selective expansion of their existing vocabulary: drop the arched window, swap it out with a combination circular and rectangular. For some added emphasis, add some coigning. Inspiring.

This photo, taken earlier in the year, is of a favorite Pike Street building. Lovingly restored by our friends at Capitol Housing (http://capitolhillhousing.org/), this affordable housing, mixed use building at the corner of Boren and Pike has a lovely wooden storefront running its length, which then turns the corner (and even steps back) just so slightly at the corner.

[caption id="attachment_1007" align="alignnone" width="849"] Seattle Police Department East Precinct[/caption]

Here is a rather ordinary fabric building that continues the evolution of the above themes. The regularity of the building's structural bays is exposed at the corners as the windows push back, signifying the entry. Note the view beyond to Eltana Bagels. A nice logical progression, should one want to add a little corner zest.

[caption id="attachment_1005" align="alignnone" width="740"] Apartment at Harvard and Roy[/caption]

There are several of these roadside -motel-inspired (ouch) apartments on the Hill. I have a certain fascination for them, as period pieces more than anything because for the most part they are not very well done (parking dominating the front is a poor display of urban manners). None-the-less, the corner here is notable in that it actually contains a programmatic element - the stairs - and hence, perhaps, a reason for expression (can you imagine, the willfulness!). Want to emphasize a corner and give it some panache, put a stair there and surround it with glass. Very mod.

The best new building on Broadway built during our last boom (sadly), this competently designed building does have a nice corner -- and an architect's favorite -- to make a corner expressive, make it go away. If done well, as this is, it is an trustworthy and reliable companion. Mithun Architects.

A favorite  corner of the day (or any day), and for a couple of reasons. It is simple, it is clear, and it is simultaneously distinct from the rest of the building yet wholly of its vocabulary. Nice. And, best yet, it houses a space that is of a different character than the remainder of the building. An expressive corner that actually expresses something inside! Bravo. Johnston Architects in collaboration with Cutler Anderson Architects.

Below, inside the corner window. And across the street, well, a corner problem.

[caption id="attachment_1000" align="alignnone" width="912"] Seattle Public Library Capitol Hill Branch[/caption]

Arguably the best corner on a building (or corner building -- a typology?) on Capitol Hill, and finally with a suitable ground floor tenant. The architects of this 1900's beauty designed the boldest of the bold in the world of corners -- they curved it. This is perhaps the most frequently botched corner-solution, leading to many a corner problem, yet done here with smashing success. How? because the materials, modulation, and detail are grounded in the remainder of the facades. One of our best heritage buildings, corner or otherwise.

Eltana Bagels -- Because it's a Long Way to Montreal

There is something quintessentially urban about the bagel, at least that's my own romantic musing. Perhaps its Eastern European, Jewish origins make it somewhat exotic, or maybe it brings up memories of the East Coast and its larger metropolises. Better yet, it is probably because it is only in a city that one can hope to find a decent one! Sold in super markets and bakeries alike, most bagels (in both cities and suburbs) are based on the misconception that if you use bread dough, form it into a circle, and put a hole in it -- you have a bagel. City dwellers have generally experienced better, except for those of us living on Capitol Hill, where, much to my chagrin, we had not a decent bagel joint. That has changed, thanks to Eltana (http://eltana.com). I will not purport to be  culinary critic, but do encourage you to pay them a visit, and give them a try. I suspect you will be pleased. The bagels are hand made on the premises, and baked in a wood fired oven, making them the so-called Montreal Bagel and the favorite of Eltana proprietor Stephen Brown.

[caption id="attachment_950" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Wood Fired Oven"][/caption]

The shop is located in the newly opened Packard Building, in a space designed by friends and colleagues Graham Baba Architects (http://www.grahambaba.com/), whose office is just down the street. Built with a lean budget indeed, the space none-the-less has a couple of noteworthy touches that revealed the ingenuity of their designers: a blackened steel wood storage bin as well as a clever way of displaying the aesthetically pleasing bagels.

[caption id="attachment_961" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Blackened Steel Wood Storage Bins"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_951" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Just Look at Those Beauties. Cool Rack, Too."][/caption]

Back of house there is the wood fired oven, while up front are some bar seats with views to 12th Avenue and a large,  centrally located , rustic family-style dining table.

[caption id="attachment_953" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Dining Area"][/caption]

Saint Mark's Cathedral: Spectacularly Incomplete

The history of architecture is enriched by buildings that are either incomplete, or, if completed, are monuments to plans gone awry. If it were straight, few would have heard of Pisa’s famous bell tower, despite its being the campanile to an adjacent duomo and baptistery both of which are outstanding examples of Italian architecture. The bell tower’s lean is a result of its being built on an inadequate foundation resting on soils incapable of supporting the tower’s tremendous weight. Part of the tower’s charm is that its builders attempted to correct its lean during construction, resulting in its top being kinked compared to its lower levels. So famous is its lean, it is a Unesco World Heritage site and tremendous intellectual and financial resources have been invested to preserve its construction flaw. [caption id="attachment_873" align="alignnone" width="555" caption="The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Image: Alkarex Malinäger)"][/caption]

The tower, or course, was a completed structure. Incomplete structures provide another chapter in the what “might have been” in the history of architecture and engineering. New York City’s George Washington Bridge, on the northern end of Manhattan and crossing the Hudson River (the only bridge to do such a crossing) is an example of a structure whose charms and grace result from its incompletion. Built during the Great Depression, the bridge was designed to be of similar appearance to its famous neighbor to the southeast -- the Brooklyn Bridge -- with the GW’s steel structure intended to be clad in stone. The financial crash of the 1930’s prevented this, and it stands to this day in unadorned magnificence. Le Corbusier, after his only visit to New York City, commented that the George Washington Bridge was: “ . . . the most beautiful bridge in the world. Made of cables and steel beams, it gleams in the sky like a reversed arch. It is blessed. It is the only seat of grace in the disordered city.” Although I disagree with the later, I certainly agree with his initial assessment, the bridge is beautiful in its unfinished state.

[caption id="attachment_874" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="George Washington Bridge, New York"][/caption]

Here on Capitol Hill, we have at  least two incomplete buildings whose final appearance was unanticipated from their designer’s original intentions. Although certainly not of the notoriety of the two above examples, both have, I would argue, greater beauty because of their incompleteness, and are among Seattle's finest structures. A future post shall examine St Joseph’s Catholic Church; today, we shall have a peak at the grand interior of St Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral.

[caption id="attachment_875" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="St Mark's Cathedral Interior"][/caption]

Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral is located on 1245 1oth Avenue East, and when viewed from either Queen Anne or Lake Union is one Capitol Hill's most visually prominent buildings. Its construction began in 1928, but due to the Great Depression funds were unavailable to complete it as originally designed, a design that included ornate, granite-clad  Gothic towers and a lush stone and wood interior (see: http://www.saintmarks.org/About/History.php for greater detail).  What one sees today from both the exterior and interior is a cast-in-place concrete structure, only partially finished in stone, brick, and wood. Although St Mark's exterior appearance is somewhat awkward, the interior evokes a magnificence and mystery that alludes to a time prior to its original Gothic precedents, perhaps to an ancient, Byzantine or Romanesque basilica, precursors to the Gothic.

The Cathedral is organized about a large cubic volume. Sub-dividing this space are four massive, concrete columns that not only hold up a great wooden roof, but were most likely intended to support the un-built Gothic tower. The columns must be the largest in Seattle, and have a faceting that gracefully sculpt the daylight entering the space. Facing each other from opposite ends are an impressive organ and a stunning rose window/altar structure. The organ's wood echoes that of the great ceiling, while the aesthetic of the steel and glass rose window complete the atmosphere of the unfinished worship space.

The organ forms the portal through which one enters the main worship space, and is accessible via a set of stairs from the Cathedral's lobby. It provides an excellent prospect from which to see the interior.

[caption id="attachment_878" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Wood Ceiling"][/caption]

The Cathedral ceiling is an expressive wood beam and joist construction, suggestive of Bernard Maybeck's Christian Science Church, in Berkley California (St Marks' architects were also from the Bay Area). Its rough-hewn appearance and gently water stained appearance harmoniously match that of the adjacent, exposed concrete (and water stained) walls.

[caption id="attachment_880" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Organist"][/caption]

During my Visit to St Mark's, I was entreated to hearing the Cathedral's organist at practice -- the voluminous  space with its hard surfaces provided the perfect resonating chamber for this impressive instrument.

[caption id="attachment_884" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Rose Window/Altar"][/caption]

I began photographing around 3:00 pm New Year's Eve, with the low, winter sun piercing the Cathedral's windows.When I was finished a few hours later, I had the good fortune to witness the transformance of the space from one illuminated with the winter sun's fleeting spectrum, to one provided by a stunning lighting design.

[caption id="attachment_885" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Rose Window and Water"][/caption]

Open to the public, I encourage all to visit this grand building.

When Infrastructure is Beautiful

[caption id="attachment_857" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Medium Ones"][/caption]

One of my favorite examples of design in Seattle is one that hardly garners a second look from most, should they even notice it at all. Located adjacent to the popular Burke-Gillman trail, there is a little gem of infrastructure that is an outstanding example of the modernist design aesthetic. It is a Seattle City Light sub-station, and I am completely smitten by it. Well, not the entire substation -- just the handsome pre-cast concrete structures supporting the transoformers and transmission lines (the concrete supports are the only elements that grace an otherwise banal compound). For years I have cycled by these personal icons of design, at speeds that allowed me to catch only a glimpse of their elegaence, yet enough of one  to make me feel that I had found my own private little gems, seen by thousands but appreciated by few.

[caption id="attachment_858" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Small and Large"][/caption]

This New Year's Eve, when I happened to drive past them with camera in hand, I had to stop for some pics. Imagine my surprise when I realized after so many years that the large, elegant towers (the only elements that can really be seen from the Burke-Gillman), had a supporting cast (sic) of smaller, equally elegant pre-concrete supports. Each set os supports is unique, but all  adhere to the same over-all design concept. My favorite remains the largest ones, no contempt there, with my favorite part being the pin joint in the center of the horizontal piece, revealing the tower's construction of two like halves -- so elegant.

[caption id="attachment_860" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="Big Concrete Tower"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_859" align="alignnone" width="700" caption="The Little Ones"][/caption]