Pike Place MarketFront

MarketFront is the first expansion of Pike Place Market in 40 years. The mixed-use development, designed by the Miller Hull Partnership, consists of a public plaza offering views of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains; day stalls for farmers, artists, and artisans; restaurant and retail spaces; as well as a community center and low-income, senior housing units. The first view above is looking up at the multilevel design as it steps down the hill toward the waterfront.

This second view is from the public viewing platform, looking down toward Elliott Bay and beyond.

Chapel of St. Ignatius

This past week, I joined Seattle Urban Sketchers Gail Wong and Stephanie Bower, along with Ch’ng Kiah Kiean visiting from Malaysia, to sketch the Chapel of St. Ignatius on the Seattle University campus. The tiny chapel, designed by Steven Holl Architects in association with Olson Sundberg Architects, was completed in 1997 as the spiritual center of the campus.

After I quick exterior view, I moved inside to do a couple of line drawings, which are not quite capable of capturing the way daylighting is reflected off of the various textured and curved interior surfaces. The last drawing I did used hatching to try to capture the tonal values of the space. This chapel interior is an example of where a watercolor sketch might better suit the subject matter.

465 North 36th Street

Searching for a scene to draw on a beautiful, sunny 75° day, I remembered this house and its side yard, which I’ve walked by numerous times. As so often happens, what I initially envisioned drawing—the side yard space—ended up being edited out, with the focus shifting to the house structure itself, built over a century ago, in 1901, and now housing a women’s clothing and jewelry store.

Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel Company

A familiar sight for anyone driving along Shilshole Avenue Northwest on the way to Golden Gardens Park is this Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel Company complex. The company is a supplier of sand, gravel, and ready-mixed concrete, as well as tools for the concrete, plaster, stucco, and masonry trades.

Samuel Nerdrum founded the company in 1907 on the shores of Salmon Bay, prior to Seattle annexing the then City of Ballard and ten years before the construction of the Ship Canal and the Ballard Locks. One of the company’s first jobs was to offload barges of sand and gravel that entered Salmon Bay at high tide and transfer the material to horse-drawn wagons, which then carried the materials to the Alaska Yukon Exposition site, where the University of Washington campus is now located.

A Centennial Celebration

In remembrance of the centennial anniversary of the official opening of the Fremont Bridge on June 15, 1917, and that of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (aka the Ballard Locks) nineteen days later, on July 4, 1917, I am reposting several drawings of the Fremont and Montlake Bridges that cross the Ship Canal.

For a brief history of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, please see <http://makingthecut100.org/lwsc-and-the-locks/>. For a history of the Fremont Bridge, see <http://historylink.org/File/20374>.