Olympic Sculpture Park

The Olympic Sculpture Park is a public park in Seattle, Washington that opened on January 20, 2007. The park consists of a 9-acre (36,000 m2) outdoor sculpture museum and beach. The park’s lead designer was Weiss/Manfredi Architects, who collaborated with Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture, Magnusson Klemencic Associates and other consultants. It is situated at the northern end of the Seattle seawall and the southern end of Myrtle Edwards Park. The former industrial site was occupied by the oil and gas corporation Unocal until the 1970s and subsequently became a contaminated brownfield before the Seattle Art Museum, which operates the park, proposed to transform the area into one of the only green spaces in Downtown Seattle. ^[1]

Dad found himself in downtown Seattle on a beautiful Friday afternoon in March. It was just warm enough to relax without a jacket in the sun and just cool enough to need one in the shade. A light breeze was coming off of the Sound.

He had a few minutes before his meeting at Pier 70, and was looking to occupy his time. He saw the Sculpture Park, and decided to take a quick stroll.

Sculpture Park

The park borders on the sound and lots of people were on the beach sitting on drift wood and looking out over the sound. A Stay-at-home-Dads group had met on the field with their young charges to enjoy the beautiful weather also. Tourists abounded, taking advantage of the bright sun to take pictures and show everyone back home that it is possible to go outside in Seattle without getting rained on. And at least one sunbather was working on tanning away the winter’s pale tones.

Sculpture Park

Dad tooled around the periphery and explored the rise on the East side of the park. From there, the Space Needle presented itself in a post-card view.

Sculpture Park

Also there was a view down seawall towards Seattle’s Great Wheel. The Great Wheel opened on June 29, 2012 and was tallest Ferris wheel on the west coast when it opened.

After about 35 minutes Dad left the park to the sunbathers and families, and headed out past the fountain to deal with the real world.

Sculpture Park

1) from Wikipedia entry; Seattle Olympic Sculpture Park, 17APR2015