Dark, ominous, brooding, unapologetically dominating, the Columbia Center in Seattle is huge. When built in 1985, it absolutely shattered the rather flat-topped and sedate Seattle skyline by well over 300ft!
The developer and architect Chester Lindsey took advantage of some zoning loopholes to gain substantial height over any other allowed tower and as a result, started a huge backlash against tall towers in the city.
Victor Steinbrueck, architect of the Space Needle was quoted as saying: "It's terrible. A flat-out symbol of greed and egoism. It's probably the most obscene erection of ego edifice on the Pacific Coast."
Built for Seafirst Bank (owned by Bank of America), the tower consists of (3) concave towers held together in the center of 42, 60 and 76 floors. The tower was originally designed to be slightly over 1,000ft tall, but the FAA shortened it due to Boeing Field. Rather than cut floors, the developer had the architect just shorten the floor to floor heights.
There were plans to place two 300ft antennas on top of this building at one point, but the FAA cut them to just over 120ft. They were never built. I think it would have looked a bit odd given the shape of the tower.
For me, this building was a total mystery in terms of form until I was able to see it in person in 1999. It was so dark in every picture that while it was clear it had setbacks and some sort of curvy form, nothing about it made much sense and it looked slightly different at every angle.
While I'm not certain that Steinbrueck was wrong, I do think this building has aged quite well. It isn't just a big knock-off Miesian black box, but it also isn't as fussy as a Philip Johnson or KPF building of the same era. The form allows probably 2/3 of the spaces to get a Sound view (if not blocked by other buildings) and it has an amazing observation deck with unparalleled views of Seattle and the Sound region. As much as I like it's color, I have often wondered how interesting it would be if it was red (CNA Center) or white (Richard Meier type facade) instead of the very very deep blue.
Some photos to share:
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Michael Stroh, on Flickr
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