In a novel move the Seattle Art Museum [SAM] unveiled both a bold expansion design and an innovative partnership with Washington Mutual [WaMu]. The Portland firm Allied Works was tapped to create the expansion.
 SAM will own all of the new expansion except for the top four floors, which WaMu will own and use for offices. Only three of the remaining 12 floors initially will house the museum and its exhibits, giving SAM 34 percent more space in the first phase of its expansion. Over time, as part of a 20-year plan, SAM gradually will expand upward, tripling its existing space; meanwhile, the savings and loan will lease the intervening floors.
The main entrance of the museum will move north to the corner of Union Street and First Avenue, within sight of the Pike Place Market. All along the First Avenue side, windows and signs will indicate the presence of the museum and a new restaurant and gift shop. Inside, there will be a public gallery with lofty ceilings, leading southward toward the original museum building.
"What is wonderful about this plan is that the bank will have its identity on Second Avenue, and it has its own architect. The museum has Brad Cloepfil as our architect, and our own identity will be on First Avenue. We have separate identities and separate missions; we're a nonprofit, they're for-profit. It's so great that we have evolved this new model that serves both our interests."
Mimi Gardner Gates, SAM Director
Robert Venturi, author of the classical text Learning from Las Vegas, and Yale Architecture Professor, did not seem to create a building that clicked with Seattle. Yet he commands a great deal of respect in the design community as evident by the pointed response by the firm's architect.
"We are leaving it (the Venturi building) as a historical artifact. It is stylistically distinct as a neoclassical palazzo — that's not the language I'm interested in, and it can't translate to a 16-story office building."
Brad Cloepfil, Allied Works
One would hope that the oft criticized stairway to nowhere on the first floor would be revamped from the irregular rise in the stairs into an ADA compliant sloping ramp.
Funding for the museum expansion is a $66 million piece of a three-pronged $150 million capital campaign that also includes the Olympic Sculpture Park and improvements to the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park. To date, SAM has raised $110 million toward that goal.
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