Olympic Sculpture Park of Seattle Art Museum

Seattle (May 2008)

The Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park is a new gem of the Seattle waterfront. Creatively located on a sloping site that always looks out across Elliott Bay to the Olympic Mountains, it is elevated on top of the traffic of a road and the active trains of railroad tracks. Once an industrial clean-up site, it has been transformed.

The park holds an impressive semi-permanent collection of large modern sculpture, interspersed with occasional temporary exhibits around the grounds and inside the PACCAR Pavilion. The grounds are open from a half hour before sunrise to a half hour after sunset, allowing for a wide range of viewing opportunities. A paper map serves as a sculpture guide around the Z-shaped plan of lawns and trails, and volunteers wander around with large "Ask Me" placards above their heads to personally answer questions.

Entrance to Olympic Sculpture Park at PACCAR Pavilion, Olympic Mountains in background

 

View from inside PACCAR Pavilion where you can get food, info, and changing exhibits

 

Wake by Richard Serra, created using equipment that manufactured nuclear submarines

 

Eagle by Alexander Calder, with Elliott Bay and Olympic Mountains in background

 

Schubert Sonata by Mark di Suvero, by waterfront walking and bike paths

 

Split by Roxy Paine, metal tree sculpture

 

 

Family Pictures

Wake by Richard Serra

 

Eagle by Alexander Calder and Space Needle

 

Eagle by Alexander Calder and Space Needle

 

Eye Benches by Louise Bourgeois

 

Eye Benches by Louise Bourgeois

 

Eye Benches by Louise Bourgeois

 

 

Olympic Sculpture Park and Theo Chocolate Tour