Seattle Art Museum

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The Seattle Art Museum is a museum building at 1400 E. Prospect St. in Seattle, King County, built in 1933 in the Art Moderne style, also called Art Deco, by the firm of Bebb & Gould.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criteria A and C, with local significance in entertainment and recreation and in architecture. Its significance runs from 1933 to 1991, reflecting its 1933 construction and the 1991 opening of a new downtown Seattle Art Museum building.

Physical character

The building has a symmetrical facade with corner window glazing and aluminum grille work. Its walls are brick, concrete and stone, trimmed with terra cotta and glass block, on a concrete foundation, with a flat roof of composition roofing and copper skylights. A north gallery was added in 1954 and the east side expanded in 1955; the building closed for renovation in 1991 and reopened in 1994 as the Seattle Asian Art Museum, its sandstone exterior restored.

Historical context

Richard E. Fuller and his mother gave $250,000 toward the museum's construction in 1931, and it opened in Volunteer Park on June 23, 1933, with Fuller as president and director until his 1972 retirement; he died in 1976. Architect Carl Frelinghuysen Gould died in 1939.