![]() Titled “Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way,” a name is taken a line in a 1726 poem by Bishop George Berkeley, the brass-and-gold-leaf map details the Pacific trade routes that contributed to early Seattle’s success and helped it to flourish. According to the architects, the lobby was “conceived as a tunnel carved out of solid rock, the side walls polished, the floor worn smooth, and the ceiling incised and decorated as a civilized cave man might do it.” It’s a classic study in the Art Deco style, with dark marble and gold and brass motifs throughout, like the enormous bas-relief map of the Pacific Ocean and its surrounding land masses with an inlaid clock. The building was meant to be the insurance company’s Rock of Gibraltar, according to Kelly Brost of the Seattle Architecture Foundation, suggesting durability and reliability to its customers-and although Northern Life Insurance went out of business in 1977, their rock-solid office headquarters still stands, although nowadays it’s a lot harder to view the tower’s distinctive apex from the street than it was in 1929, when it was technically the tallest thing around.Ī post shared by Andvalan on at 8:01pm PDTĪs the tower was supposed to be a metaphorical mountain, the building’s spectacular marble lobby was supposed to be a metaphorical cave. The brick itself was local, excavated from the base of Beacon Hill, around where Interstate 5 meets Spokane Street. This is also seen in the Smith Tower, with its iconic pyramid hat. The ziggurat was both a stylistic choice and a result of zoning requirements of the era: If buildings were over a certain height, the top was required to step back and taper off in order to let sunlight hit the ground around it. 33 different shades of brick were used in the façade, set in a gradient to insinuate crags and cliffs, crowned with the palest terra cotta to symbolize snow-capped peaks, while stylized metal rods at the pinnacle represent evergreen trees. The idea was to put a ziggurat at the top, with each level progressively narrower, like a wedding cake-or, sticking with the theme, a pointy mountain summit. Whether it was borrowed from Saarinen or not, Albertson’s conceit for the Northern Life Tower was to make it look like a mountain to echo the dramatic natural landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Modern architects still continue to refer to the tower as “Saarinen-influenced.”Ī post shared by Dawn Shepard on at 5:24pm PST However, an analysis of Albertson’s extensive writing and sketches from the development of the Northern Life Building strongly disputes this. Controversially, some have alleged that their building design for the Northern Life Tower was copied from Chicago’s Tribune Tower, built in 1923-so much that in a 1971 Seattle P-I article, architect Miles Vanick called the Northern Life Tower “a near replica” of Eliel Saarinen’s plan for the Tribune Tower. Curtis, whose photography studio was on the same block) as well as the YMCA Central Branch on Fourth Avenue, the Women’s University Club on Sixth, Cornish College of the Arts’s Kerry Hall on East Roy Street, and St. The architectural team of Albertson, Wilson, and Richardson was also responsible or partially responsible for the Cobb Building on the other side of the block on Fourth Avenue, with its distinctive terra-cotta cartouches featuring Plains Indian–inspired faces (a tribute to Edward S. (The Medical Dental Building, which was finished in 1925 and predates the Northern Life Tower by a few years, has been described as Art Deco by some and Late Gothic Revival by others, as it incorporates elements of both styles.)Ī post shared by Anamis G on at 7:05am PDT It has also been called Seattle’s first Art Deco building, ushering in a boom in the architectural style that included the Washington Athletic Club (1930), Harborview Medical Center (1931), the Federal Office Building (1932), and Pacific Tower (1933). This was exactly the architects’ goal in its marketing materials, the Northern Life Tower was boasted as being “typical of New York.” It also looked the part, as the windows were set back about a foot, creating “vertical piers” to emphasize its height. It was heralded as Seattle’s first skyscraper, although the Smith Tower, which had been down the road for a full 15 years at that point, is more than 100 feet taller.Īlthough it was only 27 stories to the Smith Tower’s 38 stories, the Northern Life Tower appeared taller not only because of the hillside it’s built on-on a hillside facing Elliott Bay, while the Smith Tower sits in the lowlands of Pioneer Square-but also the visual effect of the color gradient. The tower was a big deal: A major civic ceremony marked its first cornerstone being laid on August 10th of 1928. A sketch of what was then the Northern Life Tower.
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