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