Honestly, I’m as much of a cultural elitist as the next guy, but is this really the best use of Seattle Center’s precious open space?
A plan to turn part of the Seattle Center grounds into exhibit space for glass artist Dale Chihuly is generating controversy after gliding along quietly for months.
The plan would use the Center’s existing Fun Forest arcade building, plus much of the open space where kiddie rides now stand, to create 44,000 square feet of exhibit space for Chihuly’s work. Patrons would have to pay to enter the building, but some works would be installed outside, where the public could view them for free. The site would include an “art garden” and “glass house” separate from the building, as well as a gift shop and café inside.
As a divorced father with a young child, the Seattle Center was a bit of a mecca for us. Between the Children’s Museum and the Science Center and the various rotating events at the Center House and elsewhere, there was a several year span when my daughter and I probably visited the Seattle Center at least once a month. And yes, the Fun Forest was a regular part of our outings, and, in fact, often the highlight for my adrenaline-addicted, roller-coaster-loving little girl.
Personally, my preference would be to keep the Fun Forest, as tacky and cheesy and déclassé as it might be. But if the economics don’t support it, do we really have to convert the space into yet another hangout for latte-sipping yuppies? I mean, Chihuly is great and all that, but he already has a fantastic museum in nearby Tacoma, plus several excellent public installations throughout Seattle. But what we don’t have in our city, as evidenced by the hordes of young families who already crowd the Center in good and bad weather alike, are enough great spaces for children to be children.
So here’s a rather simple idea: rather than converting the Fun Forest into yet another high-priced museum (for the cost of our combined tickets to the EMP, for example, my daughter could have gone on 15 rides), why not convert the space into the nation’s most kick-ass public playground?
Think about it: climbing toys, ball pits, zip lines, slides, swings and fun stuff like that, part open to the sky and part covered (it sometimes rains in Seattle, you know) and all of it attached to an indoor/outdoor cafe where parents can keep an eye on their kids while relaxing with a cup of coffee or a civilized glass of wine. A destination where families can hang out together, instead of yet another place to just, you know, look at art, if you’re willing and able to pay the price of admission.
Seattle’s a great city, but it isn’t exactly family-friendly, and we sure as hell don’t make it any family-friendlier by replacing an amusement park with yet another museum. A kick-ass playground is what this city really needs — a huge, outrageous, jaw-dropping, eye-popping, whimsical, indoor/outdoor play zone. And the Seattle Center’s dingy old Fun Forest is the perfect place to build it.
Chihuly is considered to be a great artist, but he’s sufficiently advanced in his career to be considered successful. Does he need another pay-for-entry museum on public property? Chihuly is turning out glass works at a prodigious rate (most of the work being done by his staff while under his direction), so the value of the individual works could be dropping over time. Many may be displayed in a number of public or semi-public buildings as their principle lobby artwork, free for anybody to view by merely walking into the building. What if Chihuly’s popularity is now at it’s zenith?
Also, this seems like a destination where people MIGHT go once, but probably not twice(except as part of a tour with out-of-town visitors).
Are we in danger of having yet another public building dedicated to a specific purpose which will soon outlive it’s economic value? Ten years from now will we be trying to figure out how to get people to go see Chihuly’s artworks AGAIN, offering them subsidized incentives as a lure?
I see some problems with Goldy’s proposal, but I like it more than I do the Chihuly idea.
I agree with you!
Chihuli is funa nd local but … his works are fragile.
Why not have a touchable art park? There are plenty of beautiful things kids can enjoy … from the camels at SAAM to the structures at gas works.
Also, Seattle really needs a longhouse! The irony of SEATTLE center is that it does nothing to celebrate our greatest benefactor, Chief Seattle.
This could be a fabulous place to build a longhouse like the one they have in Victoria. We could fill it with exhibits from the Burke and SAM or commission new northwest art by the wonderful artists we have here like Pasco, Holm, Oliver, Davidson.
Imagine a ridable whale sculpture or a talking Raven!
only allow if Chihuly agrees to allow PHOTOGRAPHY of the outdoor artwork and that it can be used commercially. Currently, if I were to take a photograph of one of his pieces (even in the abstract) and try and make a buck off my photograph, he’d have his lawyers all over my digital arse. If one is provided public funds to create public art – it belongs to the public and no longer the artist. They have sold their rights, in my opinion, when they accept the money.
More of the same ..
we could also celebrate other parts of our NW heritage ..
How about something like the Fremont Troll?
Surely the museum of flight has an extra space shuttle or old jet plane?
Or maybe Boeing wants to donate some planes it now has parked in the desert?
I KNOW the wooden boat museum has problems finding places for some of its stuff.
Surely there are some old cars around? You know the kind people drove before gas hit $50/gallon?
What about a shallow pond. like Boston’s swan boats, where kids could row?
Seattle Kid’s Sculpture Garden seems to me to be an idea that would be very popular and, if done well, it could even evolve over time … new artists, pieces intended to wear out, exhibits tied to thew ethnic festival???
I would bet that for small fraction of the cost of a Seattle Branch of Chihuli, Inc, we could have a wonderful collection of kid friendly art!
Any art he actually creates himself (most all is done by his band of merry but oppressed and under-appreciated slaves, iirc), I’ll allow him some space to hang some installations from the top of the covered playground’s roof.
I don’t really care one way or another about Chihuly, but I just don’t want it to be another PAY building. I have no problem with some sort of free glass exhibit (pergola, roof over sculpture garden, etc), but do we need this? Didn’t Tacoma just open a glass museum? Do we need another? You can’t spit without hitting one of the thousands of his sculptures (not HIS but stuff cranked out of a factory with his name on it) in this town.
Make it a public open area. A sculpture garden/play ground would be perfect.
I’m not saying he can’t have a museum. But he’s filthy rich. He can build one where ever he wants.
Chihuly, like the De Beers folks, is a very smart businessman who figured out how to create artificial demand for a common mineral and establish a monopoly market that he controls. Knowing a little about how the guy operates, I’ll bet the behind-the-scenes machinations leading to his takeover of Seattle Center would make a fascinating story.
Personally, I find Chihuly art to be on par with the low end tourist glass crap that was sold at all the antiquey tourist spots when I was a kid in the 60s. Come to think of it, how about a real museum of glass art, that would include a miniature kitsch as well as large works? I guess that won’t make bucks for the Chihuly Churn-It-Out Corporation. Yes, one museum in Tacoma is already more than enough ego stroking for this self-centered man. I don’t get Chihuly at all. It always feels bloated to me, like a newly rotting corpse stretched to near the bursting point.
Goldy: any idea who we should badger about this who might have some influence on it?
#2 you mean like the DUWAMISH Longhouse there in Seattle?
You are a cultural elitist? You are a philistine. Chihuly and his work are more tacky, cheesy, and declasse than Fun Forest.
SJ @ 4 said: “…Surely the museum of flight has an extra space shuttle or old jet plane?
Or maybe Boeing wants to donate some planes it now has parked in the desert?…”
The Museum of Flight is trying to get one of the Space Shuttles as soon as they are retired. But they are just one of many bidders. I assumed that if they got one, they would want to park it out across the street from the museaum, where the 707 Air Force One, Concord, etc. are parked. The advantage to that location is that it is located right next to Boeing Field, and they can fly the shuttle in on the back of a 747. Transporting something that big to the Seattle Center would be a challenge (lots of wires/telephone poles in the way).
I doubt Boeing has any airplanes parked in the desert. There are, however, lots of AIRLINES having aircraft parked in the desert. Some are parked there on a temporary basis (engines run up every week, tires moved a few feet to keep them from going flat, etc. Others are in extended storage, mothballed in the hopes they can be sold if the used aircraft industry improves in the near future. The final group is in “boneyard” status, being parted out as needed. Again, transportation to the Seattle Center would be a bear for any aircraft of any significant size (707 or larger).
I might go along with MOHAI being located there, but didn’t they get new locations relatively recently?
My 8-year-old and I visted the Fun Forest a couple weeks ago and she loved it. She didn’t care that there was rust on the rides. She didn’t notice the missing light bulbs (or worse, the missing covers on the WORKING light bulbs that you could spray with water on the firefighting ride…is that safe??). She DID notice that one of the rides she wanted to go on was closed. But that only bothered her for a minute. She’d have stayed an hour more if we’d had time.
I’m for keeping (and upgrading) the Fun Forest, or Goldy’s plan for a playground. Seattle needs more of that, and no more mediocre art (yeah, I said it!) installations.
Come on down to Tacoma and take a look at a whole bunch of Chihuly stuff for free!
@3.
No such isssues with his outdoor stuff in Tacoma.
This is a great idea, Goldy. This space should remain for children, whether it’s a playground, children’s hands-on sculpture park, or ugpraded amusement park.
Let’s see. You can go to Benaroya and see a big ass Chihuly. There are galaries in Pioneer Square and 5th Avenue with lots of Chihuly. There’s a massive piece in the Union Station in Tacoma. There are loads of public spaces in Seattle where Chihuly is on display for free.
And lets face it. If you’ve seen one small, one large and one massive, one early and one (made by apprentices) later Chihuly, you’ve gained a pretty good survey education on his entire life’s work.
So what’s the pressing cultural need for this idea? Are there really Chihuly enthusiasts out there who HAVEN’T seen enough? I mean enough enthusiasts to support a publicly subsidized space?
And if you go back into the archives (ask Puddy for help!) you’ll know how I feel about the Fun Forrest.
Actually, all Seattle needs is a big pile of BULLSHIT…to reflect it’s true essence!
Whatever goes in the Center in place of the Fun Forest should piss off the cultural elitist yuppies at least as much as the Blue Angels or hydroplanes do.
Did the city ever find a site for a skate park?
Whether they did or not, I doubt many riders would mind having (another?) one in Seattle Center.
@19 We like the Blue Angels! Who doesn’t like the Blue Angels? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like the Blue Angels so what are you talking about.
Yeah, what #19 said.
Seattle was built by people that caught fish, worked docks, and built planes and boats.
Btw, the glass museum in Tacoma isn’t a Chihuly museum. It does have a bunch of his stuff outside that you can view for free and it’s worth paying and watching how glass is blown in the hot-shop.
I agree…the hot shop is a pretty neat place.
Well, they’re obviously doing it because they can charge for it, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense other than that. I like your playground idea.
Is there one? There used to be one in the Seattke science center but it got parted out.
My idea is that Seattle Center should celbrate this amaxzing part of our shared heritage .. and it is something that turns kids on!
@12 rhp
MOHAI???
BORING!!! ,,, it is being moved to SLU where it will take up space much better spent.
As fot doping something with planes, jeez man you MUST have some imagination. To make something like that kid friendly you don’t need a whole 747! Just some parts.
On of the best toy stored in Seattke when our kids were young was Boeing surplys ,, ya know these planes are VERY modular, Imagine making a park out of a cockpit or two, some wing segments, a crawl through cargo hold, etc etc.
unfortunately Boeing Surplus closed down some years back….I really enjoyed that place as well – even as an adult…lots of cool stuff there.
Yeh what 19 said back agin.
The effin truth is that Seattle does VERY little to celbrate some pretty exciting history here ,,, even in art!
I have a thought. Doesn’t it rain here? Aren’t there stil salmon who like to swin upstream and … do what they do? Isn’t Seattle Center buolt ona old swap?
Why not make Seattle water park? Not the effin stupid slides and jumpin whales, but one that is seattle stule ..
we could have waterfalls kids could walk through and a salmon stream (the UW discovered how to do this and Billy G has one too!). Add in some sort of pnds where kods could sail model boats or row themselves through the waterfall!
Maybe add in some cool art .. Marvn Olive rmakes wonderful whale fin sculptures that would easily turn kids on and the Burke has two Bill holm whales that could easily be copied and made into something for kids to sit on or balance on ….
I am nto so sure about the Blue Angles, but yehhh .. this is hydro city! Place a replica of one of the monsters there with a cockpit and a machine to go vroom vroom and kids wouldf love it, OR have it scatter a wake over the adults admireing a huge Chihuly octopus sculpture!
BTW, isn’t ti about time that Microsoft and Nintendo chip something in to turn kids on? Maybe the long house can have some game machines? or ?????????????
.
@28 ,, hmm
maybe MS could have THEIR surplus shop? They could sell used bits and bytes?
Yea, like the legal/risk management folks for the Center wouldn’t have heart attacks just thinking about that one….
That aside, I do agree with the thought of keep the area “free” somehow.
Given the EMP history, what makes the sponsors of this plan think people will show up to see glass?
SJ spews:
9. Lauramae spews:
SJ
Yes. It’s pretty new. But they have a brand new Longhouse with art display and activities. The one that was at Pacific Science Center was from the 1962 Worlds Fair. It was modeled on the Kwagiuth “Sea Monster” House. After it was at Pacific Science Center, the UW stored the beams and shakes at Pac Forest. The entrance posts are at the SAM. The beams and shakes form the Cedar Room at the Evergreen State College Longhouse and other pieces went to the Skokomish Longhouse and to the Port Gamble “House of Learning”.
UW is fundraising to build a Longhouse on the Seattle Campus.
Why not put ol’ One-Eye in the EMP blob. It would be a good fit in there.
I think Goldy has a great idea, I also think he should look at how long it took to replace the skate park from where it was (now the Gates foundation land) and its placement on the site. They had meetings forever, for a skate park that is a pretty minor thing.
There is just so little representation of that kind of thought on the city council. They are predisposed to wine bars, and dumping money into things to look at. There is NOTHING “kick-ass” about them.
Absolutely one of the most kick-ass fabulous ideas I’ve read in a long time. We should figure out how to get something like this on the next ballot. Of course it’ll get bogged down in endless Seattle “process” and all that crap, but I’d still blacken my little YES circle faster than a tornado smashing through a trailer park…
Great idea, Goldy. One of the biggest problems in Seattle is that there aren’t a lot of places for kids to go and have fun.
I agree!
The bumper sticker I need for my truck:
“I club baby chihulies.”
Feh on that fartsy shit.
@32 Laura Mae
Where is the Duwamish house?
I actually know a lot about the UW longhouse. I do not think it will serve a public purpose.
The admins see it as a cultural center for Indian people on campus not as something to attract and educate others.
Part of the problem is that the UW is not very involved with WA state indians … as opposed to the national native american melange. There are painfully few, perhaps numbered on one hand, local people .. coastals .. at UW. Despite the great heritage of Bill Holm and Marvin Oliver, the UDub has NO understanding of the importance of coastal culture to the larger society.
My own opinion is that ALL of Seattle Center could and should be built around this part of our heritage. I would move the statue of Chief Seattle from its current role as a pigeon perch and traffic circle onto a hill at SCenter. I would also keep Center Hose, but retheme it around Coastal Culture … Ivar’s Salmon House shows how this can be done in a very tasteful way.
As for the ex-fun forest, I can see ked friendly coastal sculptures … replicas of Bill holms whaloes, maybe Bill Reid’s clam, a carving station.
For that matter why not have a Seattle totem pole carved to honor all of OUR clans, even the “Boston Men?”
@18: Klynical
Spoken like the true piece of crap you are…thanks, for once again demonstrating that you are:
1. Stupid
2. Have nothing positive to contribute
3. Are a negative, small-minded republican asshole.
Goldy: I agree – the fun forest should stay kid-oriented – good idea! A pay to view chihuly building….is not very kid oriented. The science center, the center house and the other activites down there need some additional kid-oriented space.
“Chihuly is considered to be a great artist” — only by provincial locals. Come on. He’s regional and a minor artist, his work sort of peaked years ago and it’s just a factory now like Thomas Kinkaide. If you have an art museum maybe put in 3 of his pieces, tops.
As for Seattle Center uses:
-we don’t need play ggroudns we have ’em already.
–we don’t need a water park celbrating Seattle wwater heritage my god man we are surrounded by freaking water, what do you want, a museum of water when we have lakes and sound and real salmon everywhere?
Time for Seattle to realize that the things that attractive people are the same the world over. It’s fountains. Cafe tables. A beer garden. A little boat pond for the kids’ minitoy sailboats. Just go to Central PArk and Tivoli Gardens and freaking copy what works everywhere else in the world. The last hing we need is a bunch of crap “celebrating the orca and salmon” — much less a dark, dingy boxlike thing called a longhouse. You want a longhouse, go to Ivar’s, at least there you can get a cocktail.
Just sculpt a nice urban park. It’s simple. Benches, winding path, a fountain, maybe a little space for folks to rollerskate …do not put a great big thing there to “make a statement” my god you think Central Park works because it “celebrates the unique history of New York”? It ignores the history of NY. It has nothing to do with history. It has copses, open space, little rolling hills and woods that simply make it a nice place to be. That’s all. This space is smaller but the principle remains: make it a nice place to hang out. My god a round circle of concrete surrounded by 20 benches with people able to look at each other and kids playing jump rope or skating in circles in the middle..that’s all you need.
Central Park has a wonderful “adventure” playground that sets the standard. I think locals and visitors alike would like this. Look at how popular the fountain is. Great idea, Goldy. I’m not for the museum – one more expensive thing that most tourists won’t pay for.
@38
SJ, here’s info on the Duwamish Longhouse:
Duwamish Longhouse & Cultural Center
4705 W Marginal Way SW, Seattle, WA 98106
http://www.duwamishtribe.org/
Great idea, Goldy!
Free and public! Indoor (covered space) and outdoor. Seattle downtown needs more places for people to go without paying to get in. And where if not the Seattle Center? The name suggests it should be a place for community, but Seattle only gathers there for events. This would stretch itself usefulness into the everyday realm…
Chihuly is a scam artist – he does not make ‘art’, as art, by definition, creates some kind of emotional connection on being experienced. Chihuly’s glass garbage is devoid of emotion – it is merely pretty stuff of no use and little imagination, although I will grant that many of the pieces take incredible skill to execute. The last person we should celebrate in Seattle is this egotistical, self indulgent one-eyed douchebag. What this city sorely lacks is covered space for outdoor play, not only for children but for adults, as well.
I happen to agree….leave Chihuly and his PPV museum out of the Seattle Center.
How about totally revamping the fun forest..clean it up and get some new rides. Make a clean, modern, family friendly place.
@45 Yeah, a revived Fun Forest instead of Dale Chihuly. Is he paying for this? Who gets the entrance fees?
@46…the museum would be privately funded – but not by Chihuly.
Its still a suck-ass idea.
SJ @ 27 said:
Actually, for the past year I’ve been involved in trying to get pieces of a 727 from a boneyard in Arizona to be shipped to Japan, to be used in a children’s park there. Pretty much the same idea, except add an ocean to the routing just to make it more interesting. The transportation issues are a big headache, so at present I’m not real inclined to advise anyone to ship any portion of an airplane larger than the flight deck.
Planes are made to be flown, if they can’t fly then transporting them anywhere else is tremendously expensive and difficult. We could take off the wings and tail of a 737 and transport it by rail from Arizona to Seattle, but then it would be by truck from the railyards to the final destination.
By the way, anybody know how the U.S. Army determined the optimum width of the Sherman Tank? It was designed to be no larger than the width of the rear end of two draft horses. Why? because early railroads used draft horses to haul cars before steam engines were used, and the width of the rails was the width of two draft horses pulling side-by-side. At the beginning of WWII the U.S. Army specified that what was to become known as the Sherman Tank had to be no narrower than a standard railroad flat car, to allow for movement by rail. So a Sherman tank was roughly the same width as the rear end of two draft horses.
“Its still a suck-ass idea.”
Indeed! The Center doesn’t need something like that. Chilhuly’s patrons can look elsewhere for a place to build.
Same old same old.
Art museums are built by rich folks who .. for worse or better .. define good taste.
My problem is the new model where the wealthy spend a buck, the public spends 9, and the welthy still get to impose their taste.
Of course, this si fine by me when I agree with their taste. SAAM, the Henry are wonderful. The first generation of SAM was dreadful. Horrid architecture dedicated by a “sculpture” someone bought on eBay.
Yet ,, we ALL paid for it.
Then we got SAM gen II. NOw there is even art I want to see. BUT … WHY do I need to cover my eyes so as not to see the automobile porn hanging from the ceiling or the trivial castaways form a modern art class that occupy the front of the museum???
Howsit that the sculpture garden has mostly second rate pieces (including the Calder) by famous folks but not a single piece of work by NW sculptor????
Why? It is because this PUBLIC museum has its taste dominated by well meaning rich folks. I would not mind, BUT .. if the Wrights want to glorify Dale Chihuly, I suspect they could raise the entire 50 million themselves.
Yeah, the sculpture garden is lame. The only thing I like is the chrome tree and that’s banal.
i think that Chihuly’s stuff sucks. I mean, come-on, it is fucking glass, that I nor my kids can not play with/on nor drink a cold one out of, so, really WHO gives a Shit about him or his hippy-ass made by some-one else’s shit? I say bring on the rides y’all, and put the money into something all can enjoy instead of this lame-o-glass-ass-fart art.
@50…
Art museums are built by rich folks who .. for worse or better .. define good taste.
Not the bloody SAM, that piece of architectural mishmashed “so called culturally represented shit reeks of rich-ass folks “art storage” unit. Give me an old school European or East coast Art museum ANY day… Give me the real art of real artists.
@53
Yeh, I said that.
Tourist shit is “artsy shit” in the way that McDonalds is a restaurant.