Museum sights in Seattle
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Experience Music Project
The Experience Music Project (EMP) is worth a look for the architecture alone. The shimmering, abstract building – designed by Frank Gehry – was inspired by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen’s passion for Jimi Hendrix’s music and was initially intended as a tribute to Hendrix alone. It now houses 80,000 music artifacts, including handwritten lyrics by Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and a Fender Stratocaster that Hendrix demolished. There’s also Janis Joplin’s pink feather boa, the world’s first steel guitar and Hendrix’s signed contract to play at Woodstock.
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Pacific Science Center
This interactive museum of science and industry once housed the science pavilion of the World’s Fair. Today, the center features virtual-reality exhibits, a tropical butterfly house, laser shows, holograms and other wonders of science, many with hands-on demonstrations. Also on the premises is the vaulted-screen Imax Theater, a laserium and a planetarium.
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Seattle Art Museum
The original Robert Venturi–designed building of limestone and ornamented terra-cotta (with Jonathan Borofsky’s enormous moving sculpture, Hammering Man, at its front door) contains 150,000 sq ft of space. Architect Brad Cloepfil’s design expanded the museum in 2007 into the adjoining Washington Mutual building, adding 118,000 sq ft, including a number of new spaces that are free to the public.
The sense of excitement is palpable from the museum’s entrance up to the main floors. Above the ticket counter hangs Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang’s Inopportune: Stage One – a series of white cars exploding with neon. Between the two museum entrances is the ‘art ladder,’ a…
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Museum of Flight
Aviation buffs wholeheartedly enjoy the Museum of Flight, while others traipse through suppressing yawns, so be choosy about who you bring.
The museum presents the entire history of flight, from da Vinci to the Wright Brothers to the NASA space program. More than 50 historical aircraft are displayed, including a recently acquired British Airways Concorde. The restored 1909 Red Barn, where Boeing had its beginnings, contains exhibits and displays. The six-story glass Great Gallery has 20 airplanes suspended from its ceiling. Vintage fliers reside on the grounds outside the buildings. There’s also a hands-on area where visitors get to work the controls and sit in the driver…
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Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center
This unique museum in Waterfront Park is part of the Bell Street Pier, a huge complex that also houses convention space, restaurants and a marina. A haven for boat enthusiasts, the Discovery Center is also a wonderful place for families. The four galleries and more than 40 hands-on exhibits include a simulated kayak trip around Puget Sound, a chance to navigate a virtual ship through Elliott Bay and a visual re-creation of the cruise up the Inside Passage to southeast Alaska. You can find out about boat construction and high-tech contributions to boating, learn about oceanography and environmental issues and hear audio simulations of ocean animals. One section of the muse…
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Science Fiction Museum
Barnacled onto the hull of the EMP is this nerd paradise: a collection of costumes, props and models from various sci-fi movies and TV shows. Highlights include the actual alien queen from the movie Aliens (1986) – never fear, she’s behind Plexiglas in the cargo bay – and the only 3D model of the Death Star made for Star Wars: A New Hope (ie the original movie). Lowlights include a bedraggled Twiki costume from the Buck Rogers TV series. Rare books and manuscripts – including Neal Stephenson’s handwritten Baroque Cycle, stacked as tall as the ET figure next to it – lend the display credibility. But mostly it just makes you want to go and rent Blade Runner agai…
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Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience
This pan-Asian museum is devoted to Asian and Pacific American culture, history and art. Named after the first Asian elected official in the continental US, it examines the often difficult and violent meeting of Asian and Western cultures in Seattle. Particularly fascinating are the photos and displays on Chinese settlement in the 1880s and the retelling of Japanese American internment during WWII. The museum’s new home, in the historical East Kong Yick Building, housed many immigrant workers from China, Japan and the Philippines; a typical first apartment is re-created here.
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Nordic Heritage Museum
This museum preserves the history of the northern Europeans who settled in Ballard and the Pacific Northwest, as well as bringing in special exhibits of new work by contemporary Scandinavian artists. It’s the only museum in the USA that commemorates the history of settlers from all five Scandinavian countries. A permanent exhibit, with one room for each country, features costumes, photographs and maritime equipment, while a second gallery is devoted to changing exhibitions. The museum also offers Scandinavian language instruction, lectures and films.
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Museum of History & Industry
Generally near the top on any list of the city’s best attractions, this museum at the northwest corner of Washington Park Arboretum documents the history of Seattle and the Puget Sound in regard to its lumber, fishing and shipping industries. There’s also a big Boeing presence, including a 1920s mail plane. Usually called by its acronym, Mohai has an entertaining collection of historical photos, old planes, memorabilia from the Great Fire, and artifacts and lore from Seattle’s great seafaring era.
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Burke Museum
This museum of natural history and anthropology is located on the University of Washington’s campus. There’s a good collection of dinosaur skeletons, but the real treasures here are the North Coast Indian artifacts, especially the collection of cedar canoes and totem poles. On the ground level of the museum is the pleasant Museum Café, a high-ceilinged, atmospheric place with warm pine paneling and wooden tables. The Burke/Henry dollar deal applies.
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Children’s Museum
In the basement of Center House near the monorail stop, the Children’s Museum is an anachronistic learning center that offers activities and displays seemingly imported from an earlier time; it’s a museum that might itself belong in a museum. But it’s all very charming, if lacking in modern-day bells and whistles. The play area includes a child-size neighborhood and an area dedicated to blowing soap bubbles.
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Seattle Museum of the Mysteries
Now in its new location at 10th and Union, the Museum of the Mysteries is more a cache of obscure and alternative knowledge than a museum in the traditional sense. Odd but fascinating, this den in Capitol Hill has a number of treasures that reveal themselves to those with the patience to explore. It’s kitschy, but it’s fun. There’s also an oxygen bar ($5 for a five-minute treatment) and tarot readings.
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History House
The History House contains rotating exhibits focused on the history of Seattle neighborhoods. It’s a good place to see photos of early Seattle. The building’s colorful metal fence is another piece of public art, built by blacksmith and welder Christopher Pauley. The fence features brightly colored houses with open doors, a reflection of Fremont’s welcoming attitude.
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