EAGLE (and crow) stabile by Alexander Calder, created in 1971, stands 40 feet tall

Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park officially opened on January 20, 2007, and has quickly become a popular destination not only for locals, but for visitors from around the world. It is truly unique, as far as sculptural parks go. The location is fabulous – right on Elliott Bay – with unobstructed views north toward Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains and south toward the city of Seattle and the Port of Seattle.

And you can get up close and personal with over 20 works of art!!

Calder's EAGLE frames one of Seattle's ubiquitous ferrries on Elliott Bay

The Olympic Sculpture Park is quite remarkable in that it is built on three separate land parcels – a very unusual undertaking indeed – literally separated by railroad tracks with frequent train traffic and a very busy Elliott Avenue. For years, when Judy and I drove past the bottom section of this fenced-in land mass, overgrown with weeds and harboring the foundations of several brick buildings, we’d speculate about the ultimate use of this land, never even dreaming of its ultimate transformation.

In the 1990s the Washington Department of Ecology, in partnership with Union Oil of California (who developed the land in 1910 as a fuel storage and transit facility and phased out operations in the 1980s) removed 120,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil and installed a groundwater recovery system, paving the way for its eventual reincarnation as Olympic Sculpture Park.

View from lookout on Alaskan Way - train tracks are beneath the railing, Tony Smith's WANDERING ROCKS can be seen at center, and Mark Dion's NEUKOM VIVARIUM and PACCAR Pavilion are visible at top right

It is nothing short of amazing that New York architects Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi transformed this awkward nine-acre parcel of land into a strikingly beautiful sculpture park and managed to incorporate four distinct Northwest landscapes:
1. The Valley, with fir and cedar trees, ferns, groundcovers and an outdoor amphitheater
2. The Grove, with native aspen, birch and maple trees
3. The Meadow, with bridges and gently sloped open paths that to lead you throughout the park
4. The Shore, right at the water’s edge, with pines and a small beach area, designed for salmon habitat recovery in Elliott Bay.

It’s a wonderful experience to walk through these four completely different ‘zones’, look down on moving trains and heavy traffic, and see small and very large scale art at the same time! Very unique, indeed.

PACCAR Pavilion as seen from street - note Dennis Oppenheim's huge SAFETY CONE at center and Roxy Pine's stainless steel tree, titled SPLIT, at far left

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The main entrance to the park is located in the sleek glass and steel PACCAR Pavilion, at Western and Broad, in the upper NW corner. This building, with a parking lot underneath, houses a gift shop, cafe/coffee shop, a classroom/meeting room, and, on the second floor, park headquarters.

In addition to the permanant outdoor sculptures, Olympic Sculpture Park will exhibit temporary installations as well.

View from just outside the entrance to PACCAR Pavilion

Photo of Richard Serra's WAKE framed by Anthony Caro's sculpture RIVIERA, taken outside PACCAR Pavilion

Richard Serra's massive 300-ton sculpture 'Wake', consists of five pieces, each 14 feet high and 50 feet long

Currently you’ll find five huge orange Safety Cones by installation artist Dennis Oppenheim sited throughout the park, and a site-specific installation in the  PACCAR pavilion by artist and graphic designer Geoff McFetridge, titled In The Mind.

When I recently Googled ‘Olympic Sculpture Park’ there were allegedly 479,000 websites that referenced the park! Here are three that I highly recommend.

This Wikipedia link is excellent. You’ll find a history of the park and dozens of links, including links with information on the sculptures and biographies of the artists. You can spend many enlightening hours here.

Click Olympic Sculpture Park/Seattle Times Newspaper for videos and slide shows. You can watch the park’s entire construction process in the photo sequence ‘park built in a minute’, take a ‘Virtual Tour’ of the park, view ‘Eagle in flight to park’ and see Alexander Calder’s 40 ft tall sculpture take shape in its new surroundings, watch ‘Art Alfresco’ and view photos of each art work, explore the park with an interactive map, view information on the art and the artists, and much more.

Click Unplanned ‘offspring’ at Olympic Sculpture Park get SAM’s blessing to see a nest of recently hatched ‘eaglets’ next to Alexander Calder’s “Eagle” sculpture.

TYPEWRITER ERASURE, SCALE X, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, sited on hillside above Western Avenue, on loan through 2009 from the Paul Allen family

PERRE'S VENTAGLIO by Beverly Pepper with PACCAR Pavilion in background

BUNYON'S CHESS by Mark di Suvero

SCHUBERT SONATA by Mark di Suvero with Elliott Bay in Background

Glass bridge titled SEATTLE CLOUD COVER, by Teresita Fernandez on left, and one of Dennis Oppenheim's SAFETY CONES on right

Fountain titled FATHER AND SON by Louise Bourgeois, and another one of Dennis Oppenheim's SAFETY CONES, as viewed from Uptown Espresso (best coffee in Seattle) located in Pier 70 on Alaska Way. SEATTLE CLOUD COVER Bridge at top right crosses over train tracks

In this photo you're looking at the same SAFETY CONE visible in the previous photo through the space between the last two cars of a fast moving train. Note the real traffic safety cone lying on its side at bottom right

'The Shore', on Elliott Bay, features a tidal garden with kelp, algae and other plants that are revealed and concealed with the changing tides