Where Money’s No Object, Space Is No Problem

EIGHT years ago one of the few open parcels of land in downtown Seattle
was a desolate brownfield bordering the Puget Sound waterfront and
ringed by the city’s skyline. The eight-and-a-half acre property, a
former fuel storage and transfer site for Union Oil of California, was
in the final stages of an environmental cleanup and was sliced by a
major street artery and an active railroad.

Next weekend that site will open as the Olympic Sculpture Park, a lush
panoramic space for public art designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects
that connects downtown Seattle to the water’s edge in a series of
shifting, subtly choreographed vistas. Founded by the Seattle Art
Museum, it features 21 sculptures by renowned artists, most of them
recently acquired for the park. Entering from the street through a
sleek pavilion, visitors can walk toward an amphitheater with grassy
terraces and the valley beyond, where “Wake” (2002-3), 10 wavelike
steel plates by Richard Serra, evokes the ripples of Puget Sound in the
distance.