Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by Elliott Bay, and on the south by reclaimed land that was once tidal flats. It is bounded on the north by Denny Way, beyond which are Lower Queen Anne, Seattle Center, and South Lake Union; on the east by Interstate 5, beyond which is Capitol Hill to the northeast and Central District to the east; on the south by S Dearborn Street, beyond which is Sodo; and on the west by Elliott Bay, a part of Puget Sound.
The Metropolitan Tract is an area of land in downtown Seattle owned by the University of Washington. Originally covering 10 acres (40,000 m2), the 1962 purchase of land for a garage for the Olympic Hotel expanded the plot to 11 acres (45,000 m2). The Metropolitan Tract is primarily located in a rectangle formed by Seneca St., Third Ave., Union St., and Sixth Ave.
Kirtland Kelsey Cutter was a 20th-century architect in the Pacific Northwest and California. He was born in East Rockport, Ohio, the great-grandson of Jared Potter Kirtland. He studied painting and illustration at the Art Students League of New York. At the age of 26 he moved to Spokane, Washington, and began working as a banker for his uncle. By the 1920s Cutter had designed several hundred buildings that established Spokane as a place rivaling Seattle and Portland, Oregon in its architectural quality. Most of Cutter's work is listed in State and National Registers of Historic Places.
Howells & Stokes was an American architectural firm founded in 1897 by John Mead Howells and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes. The firm dissolved in 1917.
1200 Fifth, formerly the IBM Building, is a 20-story office building in the Metropolitan Tract, part of downtown Seattle, Washington. The building was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also was architect of Rainier Tower on the corner diagonally opposite, and the World Trade Center in New York City. Construction on the building began in May 1963 and it was completed in October 1964.
Clinton and Russell was a well-known architectural firm founded in 1894 in New York City, United States. The firm was responsible for several New York City buildings, including some in Lower Manhattan.
Frederick William Anhalt was a builder and contractor who constructed many distinguished rental apartment buildings in Seattle, Washington in the 1920s and early 1930s. In 1993, the Seattle Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) awarded Anhalt an honorary membership in recognition of excellence in residential design. In 2001, The Seattle Times listed Anhalt as one of the 150 most influential people in Seattle History His buildings have been referred to as "Castles in Seattle."
The Industrial Building is a high-rise building located at 1410 Washington Boulevard in downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Washington Boulevard Historic District. It occupies the northeast corner on Grand River Avenue and Washington Boulevard.
Andrew Willatsen was an architect chiefly remembered for bringing the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School to the Pacific Northwest.
Harvey Wiley Corbett was an American architect primarily known for skyscraper and office building designs in New York and London, and his advocacy of tall buildings and modernism in architecture.
Benjamin Stanley Simmons was an American architect.
The Colman Building is a historic office building on First Avenue in downtown Seattle, Washington. It occupies a half of a block in proximity to Pioneer Square, and is bound by First Avenue, Marion, and Columbia Streets. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a City of Seattle landmark.
Araldo Cossutta was an architect who worked primarily in the United States. He worked at the firm I. M. Pei & Partners from 1956 to 1973. I. M. Pei has been among the most honored architects in the world. Cossutta was Pei's associate and ultimately his partner in the first phase of Pei's career. He was responsible for some of the firm's best-known designs from that era, including three that have received "landmark" designations in recent years. In 1973 he and Vincent Ponte left Pei's firm to form Cossutta & Ponte, which ultimately became Cossutta and Associates. The new firm designed the Credit Lyonnais Tower in Lyon, France (1977) and the Tower at Cityplace (1988) in Dallas, Texas, among other commissions.
The architecture of Seattle, Washington, the largest city in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., features elements that predate the arrival of the area's first settlers of European ancestry in the mid-19th century, and has reflected and influenced numerous architectural styles over time. As of the early 21st century, a major construction boom continues to redefine the city's downtown area as well as neighborhoods such as Capitol Hill, Ballard and, perhaps most dramatically, South Lake Union.
Denny Hall is a building on the main campus of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Built between 1894 and 1895, it is named after Arthur A. Denny.
Rainier Square Tower is a mixed-use skyscraper in the Metropolitan Tract of downtown Seattle, Washington. The 850-foot (260 m) tall, 58-story tower is located at Union Street between 4th and 5th Avenues adjacent to the existing Rainier Tower; it is the second-tallest building in Seattle. The $600 million project was completed in 2020, and is the tallest building constructed in the city since the construction of the Columbia Center in 1985.
Abraham Horace Albertson was an American architect who was one of Seattle, Washington's most prominent architects of the first half of the 20th century. He was born in New Jersey and educated at Columbia University in New York. Early in his career, he moved to Seattle in the employ of a well-known New York architectural firm with that was developing a large area in downtown. He worked on many projects in Seattle from around 1910 through the 20s and early 30s. Some of his designs are Seattle landmarks and/or listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Mutual Life Building, originally known as the Yesler Building, is an historic office building located in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood that anchors the West side of the square. The building sits on one of the most historic sites in the city; the original location of Henry Yesler's cookhouse that served his sawmill in the early 1850s and was one of Seattle's first community gathering spaces. It was also the site of the first sermon delivered and first lawsuit tried in King County. By the late 1880s Yesler had replaced the old shanties with several substantial brick buildings including the grand Yesler-Leary Building, which would all be destroyed by the Great Seattle Fire in 1889. The realignment of First Avenue to reconcile Seattle's clashing street grids immediately after the fire would split Yesler's corner into two pieces; the severed eastern corner would become part of Pioneer Square park, and on the western lot Yesler would begin construction of his eponymous block in 1890 to house the First National Bank, which had previously been located in the Yesler-Leary Building. Portland brewer Louis Feurer began construction of a conjoined building to the west of Yesler's at the same time. Progress of both would be stunted and the original plans of architect Elmer H. Fisher were dropped by the time construction resumed in 1892. It would take 4 phases and 4 different architects before the building reached its final form in 1905. The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York only owned the building from 1896 to 1909, but it would retain their name even after the company moved out in 1916.
Spokane and its neighborhoods contain a patchwork of architectural styles that give them a distinct identity and illustrate the changes throughout the city's history. Spokane has a rich architectural history for a western city of its size and much of it is a product of its circumstances at the turn of the 20th century when as a rapidly growing city, the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed 32 blocks of the city center which was quickly rebuilt in a more grand fashion by a community flush with money coming from regional mining districts. Many of the architects that found work in the city and building on the blank slate of the downtown commercial district became highly esteemed architects such as Kirtland Cutter, who has been credited with giving the city a distinctive character. In particular, the city has a high concentration of Romanesque Revival style institutional and commercial buildings and American Craftsman bungalow residences. The architecture of Spokane gained national recognition in industry publications in the early 20th century.
The Skinner Building is an eight-story building in Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, which includes the historic 5th Avenue Theatre at its southern end. Part of the Metropolitan Tract, the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for the architecture of the interior theatre and of the rest of the building. The exterior features an unadorned sandstone facade with a false loggia and red mission tile roof.
