Architecture – Page 6 – Willem's Planet

December 9, 2019December 9, 2019

Monday/ there goes the Space Needle

Here is another entry for the category ‘Then and Now’.
Jul. 2005 : The unobstructed view of the Space Needle from the top of Denny Way, where it crosses over I-5.

Dec. 2019 : The giant 41-story apartment towers at 1120 Denny Way are now squeezing out the Space Needle views that had remained. If one stands in just the right spot, the Needle’s top can still be seen — between the tree branches and the apartment towers.
I marked up just a few of the new South Lake Union buildings that had filled in the cityscape since 2005.

December 8, 2019

Sunday/ all my little LEGO houses

Let me see how many little LEGO houses I can build, I thought, using a 4×8 base plate. Here is the result — each brings its own little charm.

P.S. The little windmill is exactly the same as a set sold by LEGO in 2018. the Classic 60th Anniversary Limited Edition Windmill.

December 6, 2019December 6, 2019

Friday/ around Denny Substation, at dusk

Here are a few pictures I took around Denny Substation at dusk on Thursday.
The surrounding scenery along Denny Way is changing rapidly, as three really big construction projects are gaining steam.

The pyramid-shaped shell around the **Denny Substation** shows ‘City’ and ‘Light’ on the northwest corner at night. (The city’s electric power utility is Seattle City Light). Up in the sky is an Alaska Air Bombardier Q400, and a half-moon⁠ — to its right the recently completed Nexus condominium tower. (The Kinect residential apartment tower on the far right was completed in 2017).

A closer look at the **Nexus condominium tower** (left) and the **Kinect residential apartment tower** (right), from the top of the walkway alongside Denny Substation.

From the same spot, looking west, along Denny Way. Two Westbank cranes (Vancouver construction company) are working on what will become **a pair of 44-story apartment towers with wavy outsides, on top of a three-story podium** (1200 Stewart St). That green & blue crane is used for the **Denny Center** at Denny Way & Fairview Ave North, a 41-story apartment building. Oh! And here comes the **No 8 bus**, which now has its own dedicated bus lane. It used to have a devil of a time to make it through rush-hour traffic along Denny Way.

December 2, 2019December 3, 2019

Monday/ we will see if WeWork works out

The transformation of the Kelly-Springfield building on 11th Ave in Capitol Hill into a modern office block is complete. Will WeWork move in, though — as advertised on the windows and doors?

WeWork is an international shared workspace & real estate company, and it is turmoil. It recently canceled its IPO, and is laying off thousands of employees (20% of its workforce). Bankruptcy loomed in October, and the start-up was rescued by a huge bail-out/ investment from Japanese company Softbank.

**THEN**: The warehouse-style building was constructed in 1917 for the **Kelly-Springfield Truck Company**. This 1937 picture shows its then-tenant Dewey’s Auto Service. Outdoor goods company Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI) was a tenant from 1963-1996, and lastly it housed the thrift store Value Village.

**NOW**: The updated Kelly-Springfield building with its facade newly renovated, and with a 5-story office building added. WeWork has leased all of the space, and last everyone heard, they will move in come January.

November 22, 2019November 23, 2019

Friday/ the door is: red

The exterior paintwork for the house on my street block, is done.
Now I can stop wondering what the colors would be!

It turned out that the upper floor would get the same gray as down below, making the white trim color to really pop. The front door is a dramatic red. It’s darker than scarlet – it could be a shade of vermilion.

November 15, 2019November 16, 2019

Friday/ the Qualtrics Tower

I went downtown today to check on the new $392 million Qualtrics Tower (formerly known as 2+U and 2&U) on 2nd Ave. that is now nearing completion.

The 527-ft/ 161 m tall, 38-story tower has as its largest tenant Qualtrics. Qualtrics offers a software platform with which companies can measure and improve the way their customers experience their services and products.

For example, an airline would want to improve the way its passengers experience the booking of their air fares, how they board their flights, as well as how they experience being on board and arriving at their destination. That way they will come back and fly on the airline again, especially when they have a choice between airlines!

The view from 1st Ave and Seneca St. It’s really two towers: a base with 18 floors, with a 20-floor tower stacked on top of it. (The downtown zoning height allowance changes in the middle of the street block!). The enormous V-shaped columns provide 85 ft (26 m) of open space from the ground. They were manufactured across the border in Canada, and are steel tubes in a rebar cage, all encased in precast concrete.

A closer look at the columns shows all the open space below the building, and also the public passageways. The passageways are a replacement for the alley that existed between the old buildings that had been demolished for the new one.

Hey! The **early 1900’s Diller Hotel building** survived the construction around it (as planned). One of downtown’s few remaining buildings from the 1890s, it was built after the Great Fire of 1889 as a luxury hotel. Today, the lobby of the erstwhile hotel is a bar with vintage decor, called the Diller Room.

This is up at 2nd Ave, where the pillars are some 20ft shorter, due to the steep grade up from 1st Avenue. The public will have access to what is called an ‘urban village’ of shops and outdoor spaces, below and around the new building.

Plenty of wood inlays to be seen here. The slanted roof on the right goes all the way to the back, and provides a little architectural flair.

November 11, 2019November 12, 2019

Monday/ fixing it up

Here’s a cute house on my block that is getting a little bit of a makeover. So many beautiful old houses get torn down, so it’s nice to see this one getting fixed up.

The house was built in 1906. I love the bay window. It has already gotten new roof tiles and new gutters, and a nice coat of dark gray and white highlight paint down below. I wonder if the gray paint color was picked to so closely match the roof tiles. It will be interesting to see what color is chosen for the door, for the porch stairs and for the second floor. I will post another picture when those are done.

November 8, 2019October 9, 2021

Friday/ light rail to U District

I took the light rail up north to University District today, to go check in at the second-hand bookstore there. I have so many books that I have yet to read, though, that I allowed myself to buy only one book!

Shades of teal on one of the three **new apartment buildings by the Capitol Hill train station**. The first renters should be able to move in early in the new year.

Here’s the corner of University Way and NE 43rd Street. An entrance to the **future University District light rail station** can be seen, in the distance, in the middle of the picture. I will have to be patient: the station is only scheduled for opening in Sept. 2021.

The **Varsity movie theater** in the **Meister building** on University Way. The building was constructed in 1921, and designed by architect William White.

Here is the brand-new building for the storied **Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture**. The Burke Museum was founded in 1885 by the Young Naturalists, a group of curious teenagers inspired by seeing the young city of Seattle transform before their eyes. This building opened just last month, and I need to go and check it out.

November 4, 2019November 4, 2019

Monday/ The Silvian, then and now

I walk by The Silvian apartment building on 10th Ave & Harrison every now and then. I love the lettering and the trim on the bricks at the top. Let’s see if there is an earlier photo of the building online, I thought.

It turned out that the original form of the building was much grander, right after its completion in 1912.

**NOW**: Here is the simple but elegant building name and trim at the top brick line, today.

**THEN**: The Silvian Apartments, circa 1911. (Photo Courtesy: Bill Burden). The bay windows on the front, and the overhangs at the top are no longer there. And look at the beautiful trim at the top of the brickwork. The original building had 2,3,4 & 5-room apartments, at $40/ month for a 2-room in 1929. Then the Great Depression struck, and a decade later a 2-room aptmt could be had for $22/ month. Here’s more at Seattle Now & Then by Paul Dorpat.

October 23, 2019October 24, 2019

Wednesday/ the Pike Motorworks Building

Wow .. the new Pike Motorworks Building looks quite nice, I thought as I walked by on Tuesday.

The black lettering used to say ‘BMW SEATTLE’, and it was a single-level BMW dealership and garage until 2013 or so, when BMW moved out. The property was then developed into one of the largest apartment buildings on Capitol Hill, with an acclaimed microbrewery called Redhook Brewlab in the old BMW garage space. The Pike Motorworks Building is now owned by Boston-based TA Realty.

Artwork on the apartment. Hmm. Let’s see. Yes, smelling a rose (top right), would send (intoxicatingly pleasant) electrical signals to the brain, as would biting into an apple (bottom right). And the brain and heart (middle right) are both part of the central nervous system. Does the brain send electrical impulses to the heart to make it beat? No. Hearts get their impulses from the sinus node, a small mass of specialized tissue located in the right upper chamber (atrium) of the heart.

October 20, 2019October 23, 2019

Saturday/ the Elliott Bay trail

Here are some pictures I took while walking along the Elliott Bay trail. Three of us went to go check out the new beach park by the new Expedia headquarters at its north end.

It’s about a half hour walk from Olympic Sculpture Park up to the new Beach at Expedia Group on the Elliot Bay urban trail.

This railway line runs under Olympic Sculpture Park. The maintenance trucks have been fitted with rail wheels to make them run on the track. The yellow and black sign (bottom left) has numbers on that indicate speed limits: F-Freight 25 mph, P-Passenger 30 mph, T-Transit 30 mph.

Here is part of a 32′ (10 m) tall totem pole next to the trail. It was carved by **Tlingit Indians** (‘Thu-lin-git’ with a hard g) in 1975 for Alaska Indian Arts in **Haines, Alaska**.

Here is the **Pier 86 Grain Terminal**, in operation since 1970. I looked up this bulk vessel’s name **Nasaka** on https://www.vesselfinder.com. It was built in 2014 and is sailing under the flag of Malta. Its recent ports of call were Rizhao, China and Shanghai, China – so it will probably head out there again. Check out those yellow ‘dinner plates’ mounted on the mooring ropes by the stern of the ship. They stop rats from running onto the ship (to chomp on that yummy grain). And that orange emergency vessel, yikes! Bet it would be a hair-raising, stomach-churning ride, strapped in & sliding down, to go bob on the ocean chop!

Here’s the newly landscaped **Beach Park at Expedia Group**, at the north end of the Elliott Bay trail. Nicely done: a set of contoured cement steps with a little bit of lawn in, and with crushed gravel, greenery and logs down below. (There is no sand on this part of the Sound’s water edge).

Another shot, this one looking more or less south. Just to the right of the cargo ships in the distance, are the red container cranes of Terminal 5 of the Port of Seattle. The embankment on the right in the distance is West Seattle.

There were even some bluebonnets (genus **Lupinus)** in bloom. The bluebonnet is the state flower of Texas.

Train coming! A **Burlington Northern Santa Fe** **(BNSF)** railway train, as we were standing on the Thomas St pedestrian overpass. BNSF operates one of the largest freight railroad networks in North America.

October 13, 2019October 14, 2019

Sunday/ Alaskan Way viaduct: almost gone

I went down to the railing at the top of Pike Place Market today, to go check on the Alaskan Way viaduct demolition. Only some support beams for the now-demolished double-decker viaduct, are still there.

A few blocks away more of the new Amazon buildings are nearing completion, gleaming glass and steel on the outside.

Here’s the view looking south: no sign of the viaduct! Yay! (P.S. A pity that railway tunnel and line is still there, though. Just as I was leaving, a noisy coal train came chugging through, probably headed up north to the coal export terminal in British Columbia. We don’t like coal trains in Seattle. As the freight cars cross the roadways, motorists are backed up for blocks. And in a Nov. 2016 trial against rail company BNSF, scientists testified that a million or more coal particles per second come off of each rail car, dumping mercury, arsenic, and hundreds of other pollutants into rivers, lakes and oceans along BNSF rail lines. And then of course, somewhere all the coal will get burned, become CO₂ and contribute to the climate change crisis).

Here are some of the remaining support beams that will be demolished, looking north from the same spot.

Here is what the corner of Blanchard St & 7th Ave looks like now. The two shiny buildings are **Amazon Block 21.** The oval one is **McKenzie luxury apartments** (1 bed, 1 bath: $3,000 pm). To the left rises **Amazon Block 18**, a 17-story office building. Quite a transformation .. not that many years ago, I would bring my Toyota Camry to the Toyota service station that used to be right here, in Block 21.

New bike lane, watch for bicycles as you cross, pedestrians! I wonder if the bicycle picture will eventually have to be updated to include say, electric scooters.

This is the nearby **Amazon Block 20** tower that has been completed for a few months now. Amazon employees must have started to move into it.

October 10, 2019October 10, 2019

Wednesday/ Rainier Square: almost there

Here are the latest pictures of the new Rainier Square Tower, between 4th & 5th Ave in Seattle downtown. By my count, 18 of the 58 floors still need to be fitted with their glass and metal shell.

October 8, 2019October 8, 2019

Tuesday/ the ‘Most Beautiful House’ in Germany

A new brick house in Münster, Germany, won the 2019 architectural award from 200 submissions, for the ‘Most Beautiful House’ in Germany.

I saw the report in a newspaper while I was in Germany, and looked up these pictures from the website of Die Welt newspaper.

The brick house with the asymmetrical, stepped facade and copper garage door in the Buddenturm neighborhood in Münster, Germany. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]

Lots of exposed concrete and wood on the inside. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]

Is it old? Is it new? Is it quite finished, with that concrete ceiling and all? I love those black lamp shades and hey, if had I lived there I am very sure I would get used to it! Those floor-to-ceiling doors/ windows are great, too. [Source: Die Welt newspaper/ hehnpohl architektur bda]

October 1, 2019October 1, 2019

Tuesday/ central Oslo & Aker Brygge

I spent the day running down the interesting architecture sights around central station, and the Aker Brygge (Aker docks), a little further along the waterfront.
I also checked into some stores and some bookstores.
I have so far come up empty handed, as far as finding Tintin books in Norwegian, to add to my collection.

**Brunost cheese** on display at breakfast here in the hotel. It’s a cheese made with whey, milk, and/or cream .. and it is very tasty.

Here’s the type of tram that gets one around central Oslo. Lots of buses available as well.

A selfie with the help of a food truck’s polished surface . I’m on my way the Astrup Fearnley Museum, the structure in the distance.

Find the mechanical reindeer in the picture! Polished marble and glass in the modern office and apartments around **Aker Brygge**.

Here’s the **Astrup Fearnley Museet**, a museum of modern art. It’s been here awhile (since 1993), and was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.

**Melkesjokolade** .. hmm, yes, a very large slab of milk chocolate, and spelled almost identically to the way it is in Afrikaans: melksjokolade.

The **Stortingsbygningen** (Storting building) in central Oslo. It is the seat of the Storting, the parliament of Norway. It was designed by the Swedish architect Emil Victor Langlet and taken into use in 1866.

Here’s the regional train called the T-bane (so no U-bahn in Oslo!), coming into **Carl Berners Plass station** (Carl Berner plaza station).

I’m standing on the Akrobaten pedestrian bridge close to Central Station, and watching the trains come in. That’s the **Nordenga road bridge** in the distance. It opened in 2011.

To my left is the **Akrobaten pedestrian bridge** that I am standing on. The buildings on the other side of the tracks are called **the Barcode buildings**: twelve narrow high-rise *buildings* of different heights and widths.

Just a closer view of the glass, brick and steel of another one of the Barcode buildings.

Here is the **new building for the (Edvard) Munch Museum**, scheduled to open in spring 2020. The Munch museum collection, that includes the famous ‘The Scream’, is currently located in Toyen. (Is the building craning its neck to take a closer look at the water?).

The **Oslo Opera House**, at the head of the Oslofjord (but just a stone’s throw from Central Station, actually). It opened in 2008, and is the home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the national opera theatre in Norway.

September 30, 2019September 30, 2019

Monday night/ arrival in Oslo

My Norwegian Air flight had an hour delay out of Hamburg. There was a baggage mix-up in the airplane cargo hold that had to be resolved, but we made it into Oslo with no incident, after that.

The express train from Oslo Gardermoen airport to Oslo Sentralstasjon (central station) took only 21 minutes. The central station is so modern and sleek inside, that it has the same feel as an airport.

Here’s the view from the train coming into Oslo central station, some modern buildings lined up in the background.

Here’s our sleek express train called Flytoget at Oslo Central Station. It’s a GMB Class 71 electric train, capable of 130 mph (210 km/h). It is the only high-speed rail service in Norway, though.

I took a quick walk around the central station before the sun set completely. This is the town square right by the central station. Look for a big bronze tiger at the bottom right.

September 29, 2019September 29, 2019

Sunday/ the Deichtorhallen

There was a persistent rain today, that made walking around without an umbrella, and not getting really wet, impossible. So I checked into the Deichtorhallen (“the levee gate halls”) art & photography museum.
These halls were built from 1911 to 1914 as market halls, on the grounds of the former Berliner Bahnhof railway station (Hamburg’s counterpart to Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof). Wikipedia says they ‘constitute one of the few surviving examples of industrial architecture from the transitional period between Art Nouveau and 20th century styles’.

This is a side view of the Deichtorhalle (‘levee gate hall’) that houses the art collection ..

.. and a view of the Deichtorhalle that houses the photography collection.

The ceiling of the art collection hall is in itself a work of art (as it should be, right?).

**‘Freundinnen (Friends)’ (1965/1966)** by Sigmar Polke, large oil on canvas made with raster scan dots. The artist used a paint pistol and a template to create the overlapping dots in different colors. This results in moiré patterns: large-scale interference patterns produced when an opaque ruled pattern with transparent gaps is overlaid on another similar pattern.

This giant work of mixed media on paper covers an entire wall in a small room. It is also by **Sigmar Polke (1968-1971)** with the strange title **‘Die Fahrt Auf Die Undendlichkeits-acht (Der Motorfahrrader)’ Eng. The Ride On the Eight of Infinity (The Motorcyclist)**‘.

I thought the photography hall’s pictures were weird. (Should they be?). It had a lot of interesting/ ugly human face photos, and new-born babies, and other strange, strange pictures. I liked this scary hare staring down the camera, though. The artist was not noted, only that it is a gelatin print on paper, of a hare, made in 2000.

September 28, 2019September 28, 2019

Saturday/ the Elbbrücken station

Well, I did run out to the Elbbrücken station on the U4 line today.
It opened in Dec 2018.
I also went up to the viewing platform of the St. Nikolai Memorial.
The city’s 1968 Heinrich Hertz Tower (280 m/ 918 ft) has long been closed to visitors, but it might reopen in a few years.