Page 134 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Pacific Northwest

132  SEA T TLE

8 Fairmont
Olympic Hotel
411 University St. Map 4 D1.
Tel (206) 621-1700. @ 17, 19, 24, 26,
28. 7 0 = See Where to Stay
p288. ∑ fairmont.com
When it debuted in 1924,
the Olympic Hotel was the
place to see and be seen –
not surprising since the
bondholders who funded the
$4 million construction were
among the city’s most socially
prominent citizens. Designed
by the New York firm of George The striking modern façade of the Seattle
B. Post and Sons, the Italian Art Museum
Renaissance-style building
features high, arched Palladian 9 Seattle
windows, gleaming oak- Art Museum
The tall Columbia Center, dwarfing the paneled walls, and terrazzo
Smith Tower floors laid by Italian workmen 1300 First Ave. Map 3 C2.
who were sent to Seattle for Tel (206) 654-3100. @ 174.
7 Columbia Center the task. Open 10am–5pm Wed–Sun
More than $800,000 was (to 9pm Thu). Closed major hols.
701 5th Ave. Map 4 D2. Tel (206) ^ 7 8 9 - =
386-5564. @ 16, 358. Sky View spent on furnishings, including ∑ seattleartmuseum.org
Observatory: Open Mar–Aug: 9am– hundreds of antique mirrors,
10pm daily; Sep–Feb: 10am–8pm Italian and Spanish oil jars, and At the museum’s south entrance
daily. Closed public hols. & 7 - bronze statuary. A glamorous is a giant Hammering Man.
∑ skyviewobservatory.com venue for parties, weddings, A tribute to workers, Jonathan
and debutante balls, the Borofsky’s 48-ft (15-m) animated
The tallest building in Seattle, Olympic reigned as the grande steel sculpture “hammers”
Columbia Center is the tallest dame of Seattle hotels for half a silently and continuously
building – according to the century before losing her luster. from 7am to 10pm daily,
number of stories – west of the In 1979, the hotel was listed resting only on Labor Day.
Mississippi River. Rising 1,049 ft on the US National Register The museum building is no
(320 m) above sea level, the of Historic Places. A year later, less impressive. Designed by
1.5-million-sq-ft (139,500-sq-m), the Four Seasons hotel chain the Philadelphia firm Venturi
76-story skyscraper was designed assumed management of the Scott Brown and Associates,
by Chester Lindsey Architects building and gave the hotel the original bold limestone
and completed in 1985 at a cost a $62.5 million face-lift – the and sandstone building was
of $285 million. In 1998 it was most costly hotel restoration in completed in 1991 at a cost
sold for $404 million, and again the US at that time – returning of $62 million. An acclaimed
in 2015 for $711 million, to a the landmark hotel to her expansion in 2007, designed
Hong Kong company. original grandeur. Fairmont by Brad Cloepfil, doubled
A prestigious business address Hotels and Resorts assumed the museum’s public and
for more than 5,000 Seattle-area management in 2003. exhibition space.
workers, the shimmering black
tower also attracts visitors to
its 73rd-floor observation deck,
the Sky View Observatory, which
offers spectacular vistas of the
Cascade and Olympic mountain
ranges, Mount Rainier, Lake
Washington, and Puget Sound,
as well as views of the city and
its many suburbs.
The four-level retail atrium
houses shops, food vendors,
and, on the third floor, the City
Space art gallery, which features
the works of artists who have
been commissioned for projects
by the city. The opulent interior of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel
Iron Pergola on Pioneer Square

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