When you hear glass, you probably first think of plain glass windows. Glass, however, has had a long history of varied uses in architecture. Among them: glass prisms and glass blocks. I had seen glass blocks from the mid-twentieth century (my 1960s era high school featured them in all the stairwells) but it wasn’t until… Read More Five Cool Facts About Glass Block
Happy New Year’s Eve! Before we jump into 2018, I wanted to a round-up of the best of 2017. It was a big year–I moved from Seattle to Chicago and visited over a dozen different states! Here, my top five favorites of the year, followed by your five favorites (got any specific favorites? I’d love… Read More Best of 2017
Since it is Thanksgiving week, I thought it only appropriate to add historic preservation to the list of things we can be thankful for (have you written to your senators to save the historic tax credit?). Today, I’m featuring five places historic preservation has brought me over the years and what I learned from them.… Read More Thankful for Historic Places
Some big things have been going on over here and I’m ready to let you in on something I’ve been keeping quiet about for a little while: I’m moving to Chicago! I could not be more excited for this new chapter, but that said, I have loved every minute of my three years living in… Read More The Best of Ballard (and Big News!)
The Renton Historical Museum just southeast of Seattle is in an eye-catching building that doesn’t look like any museum I’ve seen before. And it’s no wonder: this building, with its Art Moderne curves and three central doors was originally the Renton fire station. Needless to say, even as a fire station, this building is pretty… Read More Fire Station Reuse Success: Renton Historical Museum
I started visiting Bremerton because it was the longest ferry trip from downtown Seattle (that’s how we all pick our ferries, right?). So of course it was only a matter of time before I visited the USS Turner Joy, a Vietnam era destroyer-turned-floating-museum within walking distance of the ferry terminal. When I got to the… Read More Bremerton’s Floating Museum
The neon pink elephant on Battery Street and Denny Way is a local landmark and, rumor has it, the most-photographed landmark in Seattle. I admire it every time I drive past so it’s about time I made the trip on foot so I could visit the photogenic elephant, myself. The downtown pink elephant was constructed in 1956, predating… Read More Seattle Icon: Elephant Car Wash
I don’t go to the Seattle Art Museum to see architecture, I go to see the art. But let’s face it, I’m an architectural historian, and the line between art and architecture is a blurry one (is there even a line?). So it should come as no surprise that upon spotting the Italian Room I… Read More My Favorite Thing at the Seattle Art Museum
Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of architecture and in the history, but preservation is first and foremost about people. It is the people, after all, the community, who create spaces, create and use architecture. Architecture is only telling the story of the community. I was excited to discover local artist… Read More Preservation Meets Art
Do you ever look at a photo and wonder, where exactly was the photographer standing to get that shot? I love taking pictures of buildings and sometimes explore for good angles (I climbed on top of a wall to snap this one, and I took these pictures from an L platform). But, if you’re a photographer as well, you’ll know… Read More The Surprising Place for the Best Architecture Photos
Susie Trexler 