Just under three years from the last time visitors stepped inside, Capitol Hill’s Seattle Asian Art Museum reopens this weekend with a lobby expansion that puts Volunteer Park’s trees and lawns fully on display in a $56 million renovation that has brought new life to the 87-year-old building’s Depression-era version of art deco grandeur.
Xiaojin Wu, the curator of Japanese and Korean Art for the Seattle Art Museum, says the reopening of SAAM includes a reinvention of how the creations and treasures are showcased that is “history amplified” and a new thematic approach that ignores international boundaries and highlights “an exchange throughout the region” of materials, styles, beliefs, and values. Modern photography is juxtaposed with ancient textiles. A ceremonial Indian elephant ankus glimmers in a case while a Chinese “Weeping Buddha” dances nearby.
10,000 free tickets for this weekend’s opening have already been claimed. A ribbon cutting ceremony, meanwhile, is planned for Saturday, February 8th.
But the real show begins next Wednesday, February 12th when the museum opens for its first regular hours and welcomes visitors for an exploration of the arts and cultures of Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines, India, and the nearby.
Visitors will find a building that was has been overhauled from floor to ceiling. Let’s start with the floor. The museum’s old carpeting is gone but don’t expect one of those Capitol Hill renovations like you’ll find in the neighborhood surrounding Volunteer Park where homeowners find a gorgeous hardwood floor beneath. While the museum was built in art deco style, the financial pressures of the Depression meant it was also built with economy. Back in the day, that meant cheap but mostly durable Masonite flooring. As part of the overhaul, LMN Architects has installed new flooring throughout the museum. Yes, it is the same Masonite squares like they put down 87 years ago. Another similar repetition has come in the museum’s theater where new seating has been installed made by the same manufacturer — and in the same style — as the originals.
There is something new above, too. The galleries of the museum were designed to be illuminated by skylight. That’s not a great strategy for light-sensitive artifacts. To echo the original design of the building, the overhaul included new “lightbox” illumination that mimics Pacific Northwest sunlight but that can be adjusted to suit specific displays and showings.
The project broke ground in February of 2018 after years of final planning — and smoothing out pockets of community opposition. CHS first reported on plans for the project in 2016 but it goes back to the mid-2000s when it was delayed due to the financial crisis and collapse of Washington Mutual which resulted in a “substantial” loss of revenue for the museum, city officials said. The project again hit a rough spot in early 2017 as city officials put a “pause” on the plan. Meanwhile, museum officials needed to close SAAM to prepare for moving out its holdings even with construction timeline still up in the air that winter. Legal wrangling with a group of park ne