Henry Art Gallery

For my free art experience of the month, I went to the Henry Art Gallery in the U-District. The building was a wonderful mix of old architecture and new contemparery spaces. I found that the space at the top of the building to be the most moving. There was a fantastic room that was called the sky lounge. This room was circular and had an oval hole at the top to reveal the sky. This room had an amazing acoustic qwallity. You could hear to smallest little wiper like your own voice was being said to your ear and when you really wanted to project and fill the room, it would vibrate violently. Most of the gallery was empty however on the bottom floor there was an exhibit about buildings which was fantastic. This was a compilation of building textures and building structures build to a 1:30 scale. Over all the gallery felt like it had a lot of potential and that it had the ability to show many works of art however because it was mostly empty I could apprecate the high qwallity of architecture in the older parts of the building.

NW African American Museum Opens Saturday!

11 AM Ribbon Cutting
Public Tours
Live Music
Free Admission

Paul Allen's seed money helps arts organizations grow and prosper

By R.M. CAMPBELLP-I MUSIC / DANCE CRITIC

Foundations have long been a means for the rich to get substantial tax benefits while also doing some good along the way. With assets in the billions, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given away more than $12 billion -- most of it to international heath concerns. The Gateses' grants to regional nonprofts have been limited and occasional, although they've given millions to the University of Washington and Seattle Art Museum.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is not global in the same way as the Gateses', instead concentrating on a five-state region. Initially Allen had six private foundations, but in 2004 they were consolidated into one and given professional direction. In total, about $377 million has been distributed to nearly 1,600 nonprofit groups.

Allen is famous not only for his wealth but the range of his interests. Among the most recent is $20 million to help launch SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately manned rocket to make it into space. Then, there is the Science Fiction Museum/Hall of Fame and the Experience Music Project. Enough said.

His art collection, first seen by the general public two years ago at EMP, is one of the most notable in the area.

It contains superb examples of French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and 20th-century masters, as well as a Jan Brueghel, the Younger, from the early 17th century. One of the most visible Allen-owned sculptures is in the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park -- Claes Oldenburg's "Typewriter Eraser."

Add to that a collection of World War II fighter planes, professional sports teams, and a production film company. He also is interested in brain research, to which he has so far donated $100 million.

Giving reflects interests

"I have a very broad set of interests," Allen said in an Associated Press interview in January, "from music to philanthropy to technology to aerospace-related things, and that's been true going back to my childhood. I'm in the fortunate position of being able to explore my different interests."

His foundation reflects this aspect of his personality. For instance, in its newest giving cycle late last year, the foundation provided $9.6 million in funding to 60 groups in Washington, 20 in Oregon, nine in Montana, two in Idaho and three in Alaska. Of that, nearly $4 million went for arts and culture, nearly $4 million to community development and social change, and $1.7 million to youth engagement programs.

About $2.5 million went to Puget Sound arts groups such as ACT Theatre, Bellevue Arts Museum, Henry Gallery, Kirkland Arts Center, Maureen Whiting Dance, On the Boards, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pat Graney Performance, Seattle Arts and Lectures, Seattle Chamber Players, Seattle Opera, Seattle Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Theatre Group, Tacoma Art Museum, Town Hall, Velocity Dance Center and the Village Theatre.

Although figures vary from year to year, the foundation often gives more money to the arts than most key funders in the region.

"The Allen foundation gives a lot of money to arts groups that would be hard to replace," said James F. Tune, president and chief executive officer of ArtsFund. "It is a major player and will continue to be. It is also important because of its ability to take a longer look."

Generally foundations have an endowment from which to draw disposable income.

The Allen foundation does not. Instead it is funded, usually with about $30 million, every year by Allen.

"When I first arrived at the foundation," said Susan M. Coliton, foundation vice president, "one of the first decisions to be made was its geographical focus. We (Allen is president of the board and his sister, Jody Allen Patton, is vice president) decided that a regional scale made sense. Not having an endowment makes us more nimble and gives us more flexibility in responding to applications." By law a minimum of 5 percent of earnings must be given away every year.

"One of the wonderful aspects of the Allen foundation," said Kelly Tweeddale, executive director of Seattle Opera, "is that arts and culture are central to its giving philosophy."

"We have a theory," Coliton said, "that good art is integral to a healthy society. It raises questions about who we are, what we want to be and how we can get there.

"I first began grant-making during the culture wars (the early 1990s)," Coliton continued, "when the virtual existence of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities was in question. I am thrilled we have moved past those clouds to a greater respect and understanding of the arts."

Coliton said the Allen foundation receives about 1,000 inquiries a year. Of those, 300 to 400 are invited to make a formal proposal, of which 200 are given money.

The foundation's grants to the arts fall into several categories, Coliton said, including capital projects that are among the largest awards it has given. Some examples: Henry Art Gallery, $5 million; Olympic Sculpture Park, $4 million; McCaw Hall, $2.5 million; Wing Luke Museum, $1.25 million.

The foundation is particularly keen on something it calls "capacity building" -- funding an organization so it can grow and prosper, to get to the next level. All sorts of issues can hinder the development of an arts organization, from lack of money for marketing and infrastructure to programming, technology and leadership, as well as grappling with new business models.
"How do we ensure these organizations exist in the future?" Coliton asks.

"Capacity building" is an example of the foundation's interest in finding ways to fund groups in innovative ways. One of the hallmarks of these grants is that they can run over several years, giving groups time to develop and work through their ideas.

Not afraid to think big

Smaller and midsize groups often are the focus of these sorts of grants but not always. Seattle Opera, among the largest arts organizations in the Pacific Northwest, received a $75,000 grant to fund a study of how technology is changing the world of opera.

"Creation and presentation" are among the more traditional reasons for funding organizations. These are seen as elements that support artistic ventures -- creating new works, preserving old ones.

Last season Pacific Northwest Ballet mounted an unprecedented three-week festival, titled Celebrate Seattle, which brought together works by choreographers and companies ranging from Eugene, Ore., to Vancouver, B.C.

The choreographers included some of the most famous names in dance -- Merce Cunningham, Robert Joffrey, Trisha Brown and Mark Morris -- all born in the Northwest and not represented in PNB's repertory.

No ballet impresario would ever believe so much new work by so many choreographers -- many unknown to the general public -- could support itself at the box office. A generous patron was required. Enter the Allen foundation with a grant of $250,000.

"We had never done a festival like this before," PNB Executive Director D. David Brown said, "so it was an experiment on our part. We would not have been able to do it on this scale without the Allen foundation. We have never had a grant of this size for this kind of project. The foundation is very attentive to the arts community, regularly talking with arts managers about what is going on, what are the challenges facing their organizations and what the important funding issues are. That is a very progressive attitude."

"Arts and cultural organizations," Coliton said, "need to do a better job of explaining to the public the value of arts in society," which may be among the reasons the Allen foundation funds periodic economic impact surveys by ArtsFund. "It is too easy for people to say the homeless or eradicating malaria are more important," Coliton said. "All of it is crucial to our well-being."

P-I music/dance critic R.M. Campbell can be reached at 206-448-8396 or rmcampbell@seattlepi.com.

Just a Small-Town Girl

Megan Birdsall and the Not-So-Lonely World of Don't Stop Believin' Records
by Megan Seling

"Yeah, it's from the Journey song." Megan Birdsall has a gold lip ring that hugs her bottom lip and chin-length black bangs that she sweeps out of her eyes when she talks. She's wearing blue plaid flannel over a worn black T-shirt. There's something about taxes scrawled on the back of her hand in black ink. She's 27 years old, and for just under three years she's been running a small, locally focused indie label out of her one-bedroom Seattle apartment. It's called Don't Stop Believin' Records.

"There was this tiny all-ages space on Vashon Island called the Crux where all the bands would play," says Birdsall, who grew up on Vashon. "When it closed down, we had one last show with all the local bands who'd ever played there, all the bands that kids from the island were in, and the last thing they played was 'Don't Stop Believin'.' All these kids were jammed into this crowded room and everyone was singing that song—it was a cool moment. That stuck in my head as something worth commemorating."

Birdsall moved from Vashon to Seattle after graduating high school in 1998 and enrolled in the acting program at Cornish. Not having as much fun with acting as she'd hoped, she moved to NYC to work in technical theater—set construction, stage design, lighting—for a couple years. She moved back to Seattle in the early '00s and cofounded chaotic local theater troupe Implied Violence.

In 2005, she founded Don't Stop Believin' Records, naming it as a tribute to the music community that she grew up with. Her first release was the full-length debut from the Pharmacy, B.F.F., which Birdsall paid for using the little bit of money left to her by her step-grandmother, Betty, as well as her own savings.

"I had a lot of fun at their shows," says Birdsall. "I just decided, 'They don't have a record label? I could be a record label!' It was pretty much that easy."

The one-woman label has gone on to release records by Yes, Oh Yes; the Terrordactyls; Dashel Schueler; Your Heart Breaks; Team Gina; Casy and Brian; and Pleasureboaters, who are the first band Birdsall signed from outside of her tight-knit circle.

The Pharmacy are releasing their second full-length, Choose Your Own Adventure, on February 26, and Don't Stop Believin' is celebrating with a weekend of shows. The first is an all-ages, advance-ticket-required event at Healthy Times Fun Club on Friday, February 29, with labelmates Pleasureboaters. The next day, they're playing a 21-plus show at the Comet with Holy Ghost Revival, Wild Orchid Children, and Das Llamas.

For 2008, Birdsall is also looking forward to full-length releases from TacocaT and Team Gina (who are in the studio right now with Radio from the Need), as well as a 10-inch by the Dead Science, which will be a concept record based on the Jonestown tragedy.

Asked how she's handling the business side of everything, with her background in acting instead of accounting, Birdsall laughs. "Clumsily," she says. "I just wanted to put out a Pharmacy record. In the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing. Now I'm keeping receipts and trying to remember specific days I drove to and from Bellingham, because I can write that off."

In a time when the music business faces serious recession, Birdsall remains hopeful about the future of her "tiny record label." Don't Stop Believin' caters to music fans who, like her, love to collect vinyl and support their local music community. Birdsall is excited about the label becoming a self- sustaining business—she'd love to give up her day job (freelancing in technical theater)—but she's realistically content doing it for the love rather than the profit.

And as much as Birdsall loves vinyl, she's in the process of adding digital download coupons to all her releases. "People still like to have physical copies of things in their hands," says Birdsall. "If I'm going to pay for something, then I'm going to pay for a physical thing, not just music files floating around in the ether."

Choose Your Own Adventure will be the label's first vinyl/digital release, and, for the collectors, the vinyl release comes wrapped in some pretty impressive packaging.

"It has foiled stamping on the cover and on the back and it's on creamy yellow vinyl," says Birdsall. "It's really exciting to look at finished records."

Birdsall still speaks with the same youthful enthusiasm that's helped fuel the label from the beginning—back when she just figured she'd help some old friends put out one record, back when she figured no one outside of Vashon Island or Seattle would ever hear of Don't Stop Believin' Records.

"I love doing this," she says. "Of course, if I had known this was going be this serious and go on for this long, I probably wouldn't have named myself something so sue-able."

Go Watch It!!!

Michael Lim is my private violin instructor and he is AMAZING!!! you guys should all go watch him!!!

FREE Concert: Off the Beaten Path with Violinist and Violist Michael Lim

Cornish Music Series presents
Off the Beaten Path with Violinist and Violist Michael Lim
Joined by Melia Watras, viola; Cristina Valdés, piano; Miriah Caine Ware, performer/director; Lauren Pence, performer

An exploration of beautiful, fascinating, and even theatrical contemporary classical music including compositions by George Antheil, Michael Daugherty, Yoko One, and Pulitzer-winner John Corigliano.

Friday, February 29, 8pm
PONCHO Concert Hall
710 E. Roy St. (Capitol Hill)

Free admission to Cornish students, faculty and staff; General admission: $15, $7.50 for students, seniors & Cornish alumni

http://www.michaeljinsoolim.com/Home.html

Visions for Seattle Center's future: more green but no (Fun) Forest

By Stuart Eskenazi
Seattle Times staff reporter

The Seattle Center of the future could feature a new outdoor amphitheater where Memorial Stadium is now, additional green space to replace the asphalt of the Fun Forest, and a newfangled Center House with glass-covered breezeways and outdoor patio seating.

Those are just some of the design options that Center officials presented Monday to City Council members. The council plans to mix and match its favorite redesign ideas and incorporate them into a master plan that will guide future redevelopment.

"This is the first opportunity we've had in almost 20 years to reshape Seattle Center," said Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, chairman of the council's Parks and Seattle Center committee.
Costs for a major revamping of Seattle Center range from $600 million to $650 million — but Rasmussen said a possible November 2008 ballot measure for the Center likely would not exceed $150 million. He said the council could delay a funding measure until 2010.

Redevelopment plans currently being considered have evolved out of the Century 21 Committee, a 17-member task force that Mayor Greg Nickels appointed. The committee has focused primarily on Memorial Stadium, the Fun Forest and Center House.

Memorial Stadium, currently deeded to the Seattle School District, appears to be a goner, with the city and school district leaning toward tearing down the stands and sharing the new space. One plan favors a new synthetic-turf athletic field for use during the school year that would convert into a large outdoor amphitheater in the summer.

Depending on seating configuration, the amphitheater could accommodate up to 20,000 concertgoers — though council members voiced concerns over noise and traffic impacts from that option.

Bill Rhoda, principal of Conventions, Sports & Leisure, an international consulting firm, said the amphitheater could compete successfully with The Gorge and White River amphitheaters.
That same option would put parking beneath the stadium and amphitheater, which council members immediately flagged as adding cost. The parking would replace Mercer Garage, north of the grounds, which could be torn down and the land sold, generating revenue to help pay for the stadium redo, said Robert Nellams, Seattle Center director.

The city already has decided that the amusement rides and arcades of the Fun Forest will shut down after 2009. Council members are on record, however, that a redesigned Seattle Center must remain kid-friendly.

The Century 21 Committee's preliminary plans call for greening up the Fun Forest's five acres, but setting aside a play area for children. One option would create a "splash area" with fountains and jets in the summer that would become an ice-skating rink in the winter.

The panel's proposed remodel of Center House would preserve the old armory's historic north facade but cut covered, open-air walkways through the building.

Center House tenants, such as nonprofit theater groups and Center School, would remain after the remodel, as would fast-food vendors — although the seating, now in the middle of the food court, would ring the outer edges of the building and open onto the grounds.

One idea calls for a "destination restaurant" for the Center House's roof, where vistas are impressive. But some council members questioned whether a high-end restaurant could survive within Seattle Center, where parking at or near the door would not be possible.

The council also will have to decide among different options for the Mural Amphitheatre, KeyArena and the Northwest Rooms.

Jane Couchman, who lives on Lower Queen Anne, considers Seattle Center her beloved neighborhood park. She said it especially appeals to seniors, who use it as a place "to play checkers, read a paper or take the grandchildren."

She asked council members to adopt a master plan that retains sufficient meeting space, saying some "people like the park just the way it is."

Stuart Eskenazi: 206-464-2293 or seskenazi@seattletimes.com
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

MOHI pics

Look Ahead: PORTFOLIO CHECK-IN COMING UP

A reminder that there are just two weeks of class before we meet for mid-term conferences.

At your conference, you will need to bring your portfolio to date, including all of the following:

- your research journal, containing all of your research materials to date
- "Developing a Topic" (the in-class exercise that we did on January 18)
- "The Burning Question" (the in-class exercise that we did on February 11)
- Response papers #1-7
- Hot Sheets #1-2
- First Thursday #1
- all of your informal notes, observations, and reflections from field trips and class activities

Also, please be ready to talk about the progress you've made on your research project, and bring any questions you may have.

FREE Gamelan Concert!

Cornish Music Series presents

Crossing Boundaries with Gamelan Pacifica

Featuring performances of Javanese and Sundanese style gamelan music and the northwest premiere of Lou Harrison's Concerto for Piano and Gamelan, featuring young Seattle pianist and Cornish alumna, Adrienne Varner; with special guests Sutrisno Hartana and Undang Sumarna.

Friday, Feb. 15th & Saturday, Feb. 16th
8:00pm
PONCHO Concert Hall
Kerry Hall, 710 E. Roy St.
Seattle
Free parking available on E. Boylston Ave. behind Kerry Hall.
Free admission to Cornish students, faculty and staff; general admission: $15, $7.50 for students, seniors & Cornish alumni

Persuasion Pictures and Then Some

After the show Kassie and I were hungry, as you can see. So we got dinner...

...and the waitress was really happy and her name was Jessica Lynn...

...and after that we got ice cream!

And to end the day went and petted kitties at Twice Told Tales.

The End

R. Crumb

Hannah and I went to the Frye to see the R. Crumb's "Underground" exhibit. Before visiting the Frye on Thursday, I was oblivious to R. Crumb and his artwork. I was pleasantly surprised. His goofy, adult-themed comics are the stuff of which Mad magazine fans love... most of which are ten times more graphic. Many of his comics incorporate a self-portrait of sorts, alluding that most of their scenarios are somewhat autobiographical.

I loved the way he depicts stereotypes and intertwines a social commentary to his art. Seeing his drawings up close, seeing the faint marks of erased lead hiding underneath ink, brings you into his artistic process and gives you a look at what he might have been thinking when he first began to sketch a subject. Crumb's use of white-out was also very intriguing; the man uses white-out not only to correct (what he feels are) mistakes, but to highlight over ink as well.

My favorite piece of Crumb's at the Frye is the record cover for Big Brother & the Holding Company's "Cheap Thrills" and Crumb's sketch of Janis Joplin.

First Thursday #1

So I have to admit that I didn't get a chance to go out Thursday, which is rather lame, BUT I did see a play this Sunday at Book-It Repertory Theatre in the Center House Theatre. The production that I saw was Persuasion, which is a book written by Jane Austin that was adapted for the stage. I was so excited that I got a chance to see it because it was sold out when I arrived with my friend Kassie. We were put on the waiting list and ended up with really good seats which is always exciting. When I looked at the program I realized that there was three Cornish seniors that were in the show. It was so cool to unexpectedly see people from my school in a professional production.

Persuasion was the first play I had ever seen at Book-It, and Cider House Rules was the first play that I had seen in Book-It form. It was a little hard at first to follow along but soon I got use to the strange dialogue of the characters. It was really interesting to see the ease at which the actors gave the narrative parts of the play life and color. Having read the book version of Persuasion, I believe that the play was well adapted for the stage. It amused me greatly, and tugged at my heart strings in all the right places. My friend Kassie and I are huge romantics, so during the scene where Captain Wentworth professes his love to Anne we both audibly sighed at the same time! It was a highly enjoyable performance from all of the cast, including the three Cornish seniors Jamie Rush, Joseph Luckhurst, and Janessa Cummings.

It was also fun to take Kassie, an art major, to a play. She told me she hadn't been to one in a long time, and she told me she really enjoyed it. It was also very refreshing to see a production done well...it reminded me of what I want to strive for as an actor...what kind of quality I wish to reach in my craft.

By the way, I can't seem to upload any pictures, so I'll show you them later if it lets me post them. 

Romeo and Juliet

Seeing as Im a dance major, it is to be assumed that out of all the people in the class, I would attend the ballet....and I did. :) My experience of the ballet was alittle more raw than others whom may have attended the same show, because I saw the dress rehearsal instead of the real show. This was a great and new experience for me, because it was my first time sitting in on a professional companies rehearsal, and get to see what all goes into putting on a ballet. The dancers were in full costume and ran through the show from beginning to end, stopping every once in awhile to fix spacings that were wrong and re-due openings that werent quite on que. As a whole the show ran very smoothly and the dancers were well prepared to open the following night. Noelani Pantastico danced the role of Juliet while Lucien Postwaite played her Romeo. Both of them did a magnificent job filling the characters, although I found Romeo's role to be a bit too over dramamtic for my liking. His love didnt seem as authentic and real as Juliets. Te show also had a strong comedic sense to it as Jonathan Poretta tricked his oponents in duels and hit on every lady to walk to stage; a perfectly portrayed Mercutio who is the main comic relief of the play. The set was very interesting to me becuse it was much more bare than I expected. There was a ramp that could lower and rise for the dancers, in the back right corner of the stage, and a sort of half moon sphere on wheels that created the allusion of a wall, seperate room, or Juliets bed. I liked the simplicity of the set design because it allowed you to focus mainly on the dancing and kept the scene changes to a simple level. I enjoyed this ballet very much and would highly recommend it to people of all ages.

For my Thursday event I went to see the R. Crumb exhibit at the Frye museum. The exhibit is entitled "R. Crumb's Underground", and I can say without hesitation that this collection of the artist's work certainly lives up to its name. The exhibit spans nearly forty years of Crumb's work, and I was fascinated to see the changes that occurred over that time, not to mention the characteristics of Crumb's work that seemed consistent, eventually rendering him a cult icon.

I loved seeing Crumb's famous works in front of me--the original Mr. Natural comics as well as Fritz the Cat-- but what I found even more interesting were the projects and initially aimless meanderings of the artist's mind and creativity. One of these included a collection of thread spools which Crumb had drawn faces on and given names. Each one had a distinct personality and most likely some real-life significance in the artist's life. I was struck by the recurring themes in Crumb's work, such as his shameless self-deprecation (he refers to himself multiple times as a "chauvenistic prick") or his highly tuned voyeuristic tendencies and how many of the strangers he encounters wind up in his comics.

At times this collection was almost uncomfortable, and I found myself criticizing Crumb's morality and clout. But in it's entirety, I thought that what this collection ultimately communicates is that Robert Crumb is a master at being honest, particularly when the truth is not pretty. It also made me realize how much Crumb needs his comics on a personal level, and one can see, as the artist grows older, just how much more personal they become. I left this show with the notion that the exhibit itself proposes: that R. Crumb is truly one of the most gifted illustrators of our time. I highly recommend this show.

http://www.fryemuseum.org/pages/RCrumbInfo.htm

SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY "Read the building"

Seattle's new central library integrates detailed functionality with an ever-changing symphony of color, line and form. The adult reading room at right feels as if it's extended into the sky, enhancing the experience of light and sight.

SEATTLE'S NEW downtown library is so striking, so revolutionary, so odd and so lovely that one struggles to find a metaphor to explain it.

A Rubik's Cube cinched by a corset? A crystal frog poised to leap at the staid federal courthouse up the hill? A Christmas package so lumpy that it torments you with guesses?

This silvery net, a faceted jewel crying for attention, is not what we think of as Northwest architecture. Some Seattleites may decide to hate its European polish, its structural nakedness, its crayon colors or its "brutal beauty," in the words of city librarian Deborah Jacobs (who loves it).

No matter. The new library is arguably the most striking and imaginative piece of Seattle architecture since the Space Needle.

The library is a song of light that changes with each cloud, sun angle and surrounding shadow.
Prepare to be blown away, once you get inside starting May 23.

I say this as a former doubter. I looked at grainy newspaper illustrations of the intended design and thought Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (has a designer ever had a better name?) had decided to let function utterly foul form. What was this angular lump? The proposal looked all knees and elbows, as sprawling and undisciplined as internal organs without a proper skin.

Boy, was I wrong.

This is a building designed to be understood inside out. It is expected to upend your assumptions about structure: In the words of key designer and former Seattleite Joshua Ramus, "A truly rational building will not look rational." In The World According To Koolhaas, a building will not necessarily be a box, with function forced to fit the space, but rather space expanded here and contracting there to fit function. It is like a house with the naturalness of add-ons, built over generations, but these add-ons are integrated from the beginning.

"This is an uncomfortable era in architecture," Koolhaas explained during one of his monthly visits from Rotterdam. "To be monumental rather than used seems to be the fashion." He speaks quietly, intently, a work of architecture himself with his tall, angular frame, balding and sculpted head, feet so long and narrow that they seem like angle irons, and clothes that match the trademark "Men in Black," "Matrix" fashion of his office. If this were a movie, he'd be cast to play himself.

What were we thinking? Joshua Ramus, left, and lead architect Rem Koolhaas established a partnership of genius in developing the library's intricate design. "A truly rational building will not look rational," Ramus says.

Seattle's library "is large but not monumental," he goes on. "The spaces are designed not to intimidate but to accommodate."

Somehow this glass box conveys not coldness but intimacy. The result is not just a library, but a community hub and global showplace that transcends its own city block between Madison and Spring streets. It reaches out and melds with the downtown towers around it.

The mirror-like overhang that shelters the entry on Fourth Avenue ripples like a river from the reflected lights of vehicles passing by. The library's soaring atrium above its "living room" is a diamond-windowed panorama of surrounding buildings, the view changing with each slant of sun, passing cloud, patter of rain or crescent moons of white left by falling snow. The building preens in the mirror of neighboring skyscraper windows, its reflection wavering like water, letting outsiders peek in even as it simultaneously seems to expand out. It is a brilliant play of light, an echo chamber of architectural form, stealing open space from the plazas across the street.

How the devil are patrons supposed to pay attention to their books?

The central light shaft can induce feelings of vertigo and flight. Koolhaas, Ramus and former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz look inward and outward from a high balcony.

Most buildings are predictable once you get past the lobby. Floor copies floor. But this 11-story library has a succession of very different spaces, each skewed sideways to take advantage of views, explaining the tetrahedral oddities. If it were a sculpture, it might be called Knowledge

Breaking Out of a Confining Egg.

The children's room on Fourth Avenue has a cave-like coziness, while the adult reading room at the building's top expands outward into the sky. The "living room" at the Fifth Avenue level is a glass cathedral and civic lobby, with espresso stand and fiction stacks. The book "spiral," which is actually more of a gentle switchback, is a worm hole of knowledge. The "mixing chamber" or reference area is as dark and glossy and techy (the library will have 320 public-use computers, compared to 20 in the old one) as other areas are day-lit.

Oddest of all is the public-meeting-room level, a series of curving "bubbles" reached by sinuous, blood-red hallways (shades of Frank Gehry's Experience Music Project) that some will find groovy and others will compare to navigating a colon.

The entry to the luridly-colored and organically-shaped public meeting-room level eschews straight lines in favor of curves reminiscent of Frank Gehry's Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center.

Balconies and platforms give dizzying views. The rumored see-through floors were just that, rumored, but in places you can look down through the walls to the street below. A video by artist Gary Hill will play on one towering wall. Sculpted faces will peer from alcoves at patrons ascending an escalator.

Not to mention the psychedelic green-yellow of glowing escalators, the call numbers inserted in the floors, the floor grates used as railings, the flexible tables mounted on what look like sawhorse trestles, or the stunningly beautiful Floor of Babble: hardwood by artist Ann Hamilton of raised, backward letters in foreign languages that record the first lines of the library's foreign-book collection. Patrons will walk on a woodcut of what seems like a Gutenberg press.

How about the decision to toss child's glitter onto black fire insulation and call the finish done? Or quilt the warehouse insulation on the roof and call it a "pillow ceiling" and done as well?

At $273 a square foot, the building is consciously cheap: San Francisco's library cost $480 per square foot. The floors are flashy, the ceilings industrial. The glass grid of the walls serves as seismic bracing, exterior finish and interior finish all in one, saving money and still managing to better the efficiency of the city's energy code by 20 percent. Surfaces are designed for abuse: the odd aluminum floors in the "mixing chamber" are supposed to be scratched over time (it's called patina when it's done on purpose) and the metal-thread "carpet" in other areas is designed to be mopped.

The library's use of crayon-colored highlights adds drama and helps orient visitors by making essential features such as escalators and stairs easy to spot.

As Koolhaas puts it, "We try to combine theoretical content with material sophistication."

In sum, there's so much to marvel or get mad at that visiting is a hoot. Perhaps no other Seattle building has involved so many really bright people, thinking really hard, about what architecture is supposed to accomplish.

THE BOOMING '90s have left Seattle with a renaissance of civic building: the Art Museum, EMP, Benaroya Hall, the Opera House, the two stadiums and revamped Key Arena, the new City Hall and a new federal courthouse. The capstone was the 1998 vote to spend $196.4 million (plus $80 million privately raised) to renovate 27 branch libraries and replace the central library all at once — an ambitious sweep unique among cities.

The central library alone cost $165.5 million, including $10 million for a temporary library while the new one was built on the site of its 1960 predecessor. About $14 million comes from the private donations.

Only time will tell how well it works, and if the public will be as enamored of it as city leaders are. Its shape is odd precisely because it's supposed to be so functional, so practical, so logical — and yet the appearance was agonized over to make a splash. When Koolhaas' OMA firm presented it to the library board at a Lake Washington house, members were so stunned they told the architects to go wait on the dock while they argued. Finally, the designers were allowed back inside to hear the verdict: "We don't know what it is, but we can see the design accomplishes what we agreed to."

What dimension are we in, Scotty? The new library plays with form and light in dizzyingly delightful ways.

No more hometown coziness. Seattle swallowed hard, hired a Dutchman, and is going global in its ambition.

One of the community leaders who weighed in on the design, former Microsoft executive Paul Maritz, said the bizarre shape could not have been agreed to a year earlier or a year later. A year earlier Seattle lacked the sophistication for the gamble, and a year later the dot-com boom had gone bust. This is a time capsule of civic chutzpah.

It also is an attempt to reshuffle how libraries house information. All nonfiction librarian specialists will be gathered in a central "mixing chamber" or platform, connected by both sight and Star-Trek-like Vocera intercoms. These information commandos will guide you to the "spiral" of books — a gently inclined unbroken floor that climbs and climbs, and emphasizes the unity of knowledge. In theory, it will cut your search time for a book in half.

Librarian Jacobs did not make the mistake of San Francisco and leave little room for books, on the assumption they are a dead technology. (Bibliophiles wanted to burn that librarian at the stake.) Even though only 32 percent of the library square footage is devoted to books (it is also administrative center, book-sorting center and civic center with auditorium and meeting rooms) it has room for its book collection to double to 1.45 million volumes.

But she, Koolhaas and OMA's Ramus did ask local tech-heads in a series of meetings, which included one at Bill Gates' home, where information was going. The problem of the future, they decided, will not be the scarcity of information that libraries have traditionally addressed by sharing books. Rather, it will be the over-abundance of information brought on by the Internet. Libraries will be in the business of helping patrons separate the wheat from the chaff by helping them sort through the 100,000 Google hits their search engine returned. Glass skin aside, the library is fundamentally designed — in both its public and staff spaces — to meet the Information Age of the 21st century.

Mountain-climbing gear and the diamond framing make window washing fairly easy. The overhangs have hooks that washers can clip to as they clean.

The result is a risk. Will the escalators, computer cabling, book-conveyer belts, auditorium, meeting rooms and shaded glass work as intended? Will patrons behave? Everywhere Jacobs goes, she is asked if we are not spending $165.5 million on what will become a glorified, smelly greenhouse for the homeless. Is it safe? Is it clean?

Months before opening, librarians were worrying about the possible necessity of locking off bathrooms to curb drug dealing. The men's room is painted an electric seasick green to discourage lingering. Andrew Carnegie must be rolling in his grave.

BEFORE THE INEVITABLE glitches and second-guessing, however, understand how this so-logical-it-looks-unlogical building came about.

Libraries are both a very old and very new idea. Old in that they date back to Sumeria. Medieval Baghdad, before its sack by the Mongols, had 36 public libraries when Europe had none. And new in that the idea of tax-supported public libraries in large numbers only dates back to the mass-education movement of the 19th century. In the United States, steel tycoon Carnegie was key to making libraries commonplace, helping finance 2,700 of them. Seattle's first true library was a Carnegie, built at the same site of this new one in 1906.

The OMA architect most responsible for pulling Koolhaas' theory into coherent and cost-effective form is Seattle native Joshua Ramus, who has worked 12- and 14-hour days for five years to think through the details.

That building's 1960 successor was the first in the nation to have escalators and was considered an elegant beauty for its day. But collections outgrew it, meeting rooms were inadequate, street people adopted it, and after nearly half a century is was time for renewal.

In 1994, a proposed library levy was defeated. So Jacobs, recruited in 1997 after a successful campaign to build a new library in Corvallis (on time and under budget, which is not quite the case this time around) was hired to rally the city around a "libraries for all" campaign (the phrase was coined by local historian Walt Crowley) that emphasized neighborhood branches as well as downtown. In 1998, near the height of the dot-com boom, voters bit.

Why a downtown library at all? Few live nearby. Despite the addition of a parking garage, the central library is still hard to get to. Public libraries are really not as suited to research as university libraries.

"It's the heart of the city in the heart of the city," then-mayor Paul Schell justified.
And why Jacobs? At first chance she might seem an unlikely choice for Seattle. A California Valley Girl by geographic origin, she glows with political charisma like the core of a reactor, and isn't afraid to make decisions.

While from the outside it looks like an earthquake has reshuffled library components, the odd angles produce a striking series of views and spaces that make sense when experienced inside.

"From the moment Rem took the library out of its box, I got it," she says.

She and the architects spent three months in the United States and Europe looking at and critiquing other libraries. It was Prince Charles, after all, who said the mammoth new British Library "looks like an academy for the secret police." Jacobs determined Seattle could do better than that — better than anyone in the world. She enlisted staff and the public to weigh in, got a consensus for something radical and is confident she is right.

"Even if people hate it as a building," she predicts, "when they go inside they will love it as a building."

Why Koolhaas? Because he had a reputation as one of architecture's most revolutionary thinkers and had hired, in Ramus, a Harvard-and-Yale-educated genius from Shoreline and Bainbridge Island who was able to turn the ideas derived from an exhaustive public process into dollars-and-cents design.

"This is really Joshua's building," Jacobs notes. He ran with Rem's theories, and at age 34, has a showpiece that may catapult him toward the same level of fame as his boss.

City Librarian Deborah Jacobs is alternately giddy and thoughtful about an architectural gamble different from any library in the world. Bucking the notion that function should follow form, designers created the building from the inside out, focusing on what each area needed to do to work for library users.

Until relatively recently, Koolhaas was one of those architects whose ideas were more praised than built, a one-time journalist more famed for his theoretical writing than his structures. After a series of bad-luck project cancellations due to politics, his firm nearly folded. But now the world has caught up with his mind, and his projects are being realized. In 2000 he won architecture's biggest prize, the Pritzker.

Many details of what Ramus and Koolhaas did are subtle. The tilted pillars transfer loads from the jutting platforms to the conventional parking garage columns far below. The size of the diamond windows resulted from careful calculations of steel, weight and manpower to simplify installation, truck deliveries and crane time. Local contractor Hoffman Construction gets raves from Koolhaas for its work: One employee, nicknamed "Possum," specialized in running back and forth on window framing as it was lifted, helping it tilt to get past the odd protrusions and slide into place.

This is a public building, designed to draw you inside in part by revealing itself at night. Inside, the exterior darkness makes rooms seem smaller and cozier.

Bathrooms are deliberately within the staff's line of sight. There are five small heating and cooling plants instead of one big one, simplifying utilities, zoning climate control and allowing floors to be thinner because of smaller ducts. Finish floors float above crawl spaces that can be rewired as technology advances. Window grids called "shark skin" are designed to let in winter sun and block out summer sun. And so on.

Above all, the library is designed to be inviting and intuitive to people who want to find a book. Designers calculated that the downtown Barnes & Noble bookstore had 40 times the people traffic, per square foot, as the old library. Why? What was the public sector doing wrong that the private sector is doing right? They want to compete.

This "invasion" of a Dutch outsider was tempered by the hire of a local architectural firm, LMN, to oversee the actual construction. LMN's Sam Miller points out that, far from being a monument to European ideas, the library embraces its surroundings in a completely new way. Only from the inside can you see how it tries to marry Seattle. Architects of surrounding towers will be delighted how the new library becomes a ringside seat to view their work.

Architects Joshua Ramus and Rem Koolhaas check out another view from a library designed to embrace and play with its surrounding office towers.

"This building reinvents the form of the library in many, many ways," Miller says.

It certainly is not perfect. The need to control costs resulted in a structure squatter than initially proposed. In an era when Seattle skyscrapers have finally begun to get interesting roofs, the new library is as dull when viewed from above as it is intriguing from street level. The entries seem subdued — where's the door? — and it will be interesting to see if sound is adequately controlled in the soaring spaces.

But instead of being a book warehouse, a predictable generic space, this library demands exploration. Every corner yields surprising perspective. Floors shuffle and peek at each other. To avoid disorientation, signage designer Bruce Mau has inserted clues on all kinds of surfaces to keep patrons from getting lost.

"Read the building," Ramus urges. "The last thing we tried to do was make an object. It reacts to its context."

As they say in the library biz, check it out.

RESPONSE PAPER #3

Due: Wednesday, January 30

1. Read “Northwest Gateway: The Story of the Port of Seattle” by Archie Binns in Reading Seattle (pages 21-30).

2. Read actively. Take notes in the margin, note questions, underline ideas of interest, and look up unfamiliar words and references. (Note that there is an error on page 26: Governor Stevens visited Washington Territory in 1854, not 1894.)

3. Jot down notes in response to the following questions (and be ready to discuss them in class):
· What elements of Seattle’s geography and history does Archie Binns emphasize?
· What is remarkable about the madrona trees on Magnolia Bluff?
· What differences does Chief Seattle draw between white people and Native Americans?
· In The Lure of the Local, Lucy R. Lippard writes about the study of history as a means to reveal “place.” What does “Northwest Gateway” reveal about Seattle as a “place”?

4. Review Chief Seattle’s speech. What grabs you? Which ideas are particularly striking or meaningful? Which images are particularly vivid? Where does the phrasing have particular eloquence or power? Mark three to five quotations from Chief Seattle’s speech that you find striking.

5. Select one quotation that has particular significance or meaning for you as an individual living/studying in the city of Seattle in 2008.

6. Write a paragraph quoting Chief Seattle and explaining the significance of the quotation you selected. Use one of the following forms to incorporate the quotation into your paragraph:
· In Chief Seattle’s famous 1854 address, he said, “Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change.”
· “Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change,” said Chief Seattle to Governor Stevens.
· “Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal,” said Chief Seattle, “may change.”

7. Read what you’ve written and evaluate:
· Have you quoted Chief Seattle accurately?
· Have you clearly explained the significance of the quotation? (Or, does the quotation clearly support the point you’re making?)

8. Revise as needed. Proofread your revised draft. (It may be helpful to exchange papers with a classmate.) Correct errors of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

9. Save a copy of the paper on your computer, and print a copy to bring to class. (Your paper should be double-spaced, with one-inch margins. At the top of the page, please include your name, the date, “Seattle Arts Ecology,” and “Response Paper #3.”)

References in NORTHWEST GATEWAY

Henry Smith
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2965

Jim Hill
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=7294

Thomas Mercer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/42017_mercer09.shtml

Denny
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=303

Boren
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1936

Bell
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=2015

Doctor Maynard
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=315

Chief Seattle
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1427

Native American People of Puget Sound
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1506

Governor Stevens
http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5314

Research Journal

Throughout the semester, you will keep a journal of your research.

Objectives:
. To maintain an active, ongoing record of the sources you consult as a part of the research project.
. To create a roadmap of the terrain you’ve explored, jog your memory about useful sources, and develop ideas about where to go next.
. To collect articles you photocopy or print from the web.
. To mark passages that are potentially quotable.
. To record your “dialogues” with sources—active engagement with the material, including margin notes, responses to what you read, questions that emerge, discoveries that you make, etc.
. To collect bibliographic information on all the sources you consult as a part of the research project.
. To collect drafts of your research paper.

Components:
Your research journal will contain 7 sections:
1. Your hot sheets.
2. A list of all the sources you consult as a part of the research project, annotated with information about the relative usefulness of each source.
3. Copies of the sources you photocopy or print from the web, transcripts of interviews, etc.
4. Your dialogues with sources.
5. Bibliographic information on all your sources.
6. Reflections on your working process.
7. All drafts of your research paper.

Directions:
Choose a notebook and divide it into 7 sections. (Tabs can be useful to keep things organized.)
Whenever you consult a source
· write down the bibliographic information
· write notes about the relative usefulness of the source
· print or photocopy any useful material
· mark quotable passages

Due: Monday, January 28
Identify and read 3+ sources. Write research journal entries on each and bring to class.

Hot Sheet #1

Due: Monday, January 28

As a part of your work on the research project, you will create a one-page “hot sheet” that defines the topic you propose to explore. Feel free to cast a wide net—you will have an opportunity to narrow your topic later.

Objectives:
· Describe your topic in brief, meaningful language as a way to
. I dentify the focus of your work
. Concisely express your research goals to librarians, interviewees, and others whose assistance you seek as part of your research process
· Develop tools for seeing deeper into the related ideas and implications of your research.
· Build an action plan for the completion of your research.

Components:
Your hot sheet will contain four sections:
· A brief description of your proposed research topic.
· A list of key words and phrases (terms, features, images, ideas) associated with your topic.
· A collection of “what,” “how,” “who,” and “why” questions about your topic.
· An action plan with tasks that you plan to undertake in the next 3 weeks.

Directions:

1. Write your name, the date, “Seattle Arts Ecology,” and “Hot Sheet #1” at the top of your sheet.

2. Title your research project. (You may change this title later.)

3. Describe your research project in 75-100 words. (What are you exploring? What do you want to find out? What kinds of sources do you need? What do you hope you or others will “get” from the project?)

4. Brainstorm a list of key words or short phrases that relate to your project. (Aim for 10-15 words or phrases.)

5. Make a list of “what,” “how,” “who,” and “why” questions about your topic. (Aim for 10 questions.)

6. Write a brief action plan, detailing the tasks that you plan to undertake in the next 2-3 weeks. Give yourself deadlines to complete each task.

7. Print two copies: save one for yourself and give one to me.