Seattle Blog and Recent Site Additions
July 26, 2012
Permanent Art Installations in Seattle City Hall
Return by artist Beliz Brother
Note: we have a blog article about the Seattle City Hall architecture on a separate web page. Please click here to see this article.
ART AT THE SEATTLE CITY HALL
The city of Seattle commits 1% of its capital improvements budget for art to decorate civic buildings and public places. One place where this publicly funded art is on prominent display is in the Seattle City Hall. The Seattle City Hall has six permanent art installations as well as offering temporary displays of the city’s portable art works in the lobby. In this article, we feature several of the permanent art installations in the City Hall.
| ART INDEX | Blue Glass Passage | James Carpenter |
| Evolving Wing and the Gravity of Presence | Eric Robertson | |
| Continuum | Beliz Brother | |
| Return | Beliz Brother |
Blue Glass Passage
Artist: James Carpenter
View facing south
This permanent installation is part of the City Hall structure and it connects the office block with the City Council Chamber. It spans the lobby. This 60 foot long bridge is made of blue laminated structural glass panels for the floor and the side panels are transparent glass. It is a colorful addition to the spacious lobby of the building. You can enjoy expansive views of Seattle from the west side of the bridge.
Facing north. Beliz Brother's work Continuum is seen just past the end of the bridge.
Evolving Wing and the Gravity of Presence
Artist: Eric Robertson
This massive work is a 72 foot long mixed media installation in the lobby near the Fifth Avenue entrance.
Continuum
Artist: Beliz Brother
This interesting work is by Seattle artist Beliz Brother. It is one of three works she was commissioned to create for the City Hall. The work is composed of 5,000 historic and contemporary images of the people of Seattle. This large work is 10 feet long, 8 feet high, and 8 inches deep.
Detail of the work
Return
Artist: Beliz Brother
The work Return is one of my favorite art works in Seattle. The work is composed of 74 glass panels that form a ten foot tall, faceted, curved glass wall in the main lobby. The work partially encloses the Bertha Knight Landes Room. Each 20 by 36 inch panel contains images sandwiched between layers of tempered glass. The images reflect historical and contemporary scenes of Seattle.
This work has many facets and it offers different looks depending on the amount of sunlight that streams into the Landes Room to illuminate the panels.
It is a lovely subject for photography.
Detail of the panels
Click here to go to the blog article about the architecture of the Seattle City Hall
Click here to return to go our Explore Seattle Alphabetical Index