Place to see: Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle, Washington, United States

About this place:

After ten years of cleanup from its petroleum transfer days, the Seattle Art Museum, aided by the Trust for Public Land, the City of Seattle, King County and private donors, has created this nine-acre open air park from land that was an industrial eyesore in the heart of an emerging neighborhood near downtown Seattle.

The site is perched above Ellott Bay and has magnificent, sweeping views of the bay, Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond. Boat traffic, ferries, freighters, tug boats, fishing boats and sail boats make an ever-changing parade in the water below as the visitor wanders down from the entrance on a "Z"-shaped path to the shoreline.

The park is free to the public and has won several honors in its short existence. It recently was designated a 2008 recipient of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Institute Honor Awards, the profession’s highest recognition of works that exemplify excellence in architecture, interior architecture and urban design. Another of its many awards is the American Society of Landscape Architects General Design Honor Award for 2007.

Many important sculptors are represented here, including, for example, Alexander Calder, Claes Oldenburg, Louise Nevelson, Richard Serra, and others. The outdoor park is open daily 365 days a year, 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset. An indoor pavilion inside the park with smaller works of art keeps museum hours and is closed on Mondays. Sunset is a dramatic time of day when the sun sets directly to the west over the Olympic Mountains and bathes the sculptures in warm radiance.