Roosevelt-Green Lake Art Corridor: Columnseum Project by Sheila Klein

Completed in 1967, the construction of Interstate-5 created Seattle’s Roosevelt and Green Lake neighborhoods from a single residential and business district. The thoroughfare joining them passes under the interstate, where a park-and-ride facility affords commuters access to bus transit. The 10-acre site, with its forest of poured-concrete pillars was vilified from the start by neighborhood groups as unsightly, chaotic and unsafe. They eventually organized to lobby for mitigation of the site, with a stated goal of site cleanup, improved safety and creation of a visual and aesthetic connection between the neighborhoods. The City of Seattle funded an Art Plan that identified scope for the project and was used as a tool for political and departmental discussion. King County Department of Transportation % for art dollars funded design and implementation of the final art project by Sheila Klein. Columnseum uses graphic application of painted dots and ovals on structural columns in the vernacular color palette of the site (white road striping, yellow loading and blue handicapped curbs) to create zones within the structure that assist in wayfinding on both a micro and a macro scale: for the user parking a vehicle and for vehicular traffic entering or passing through the neighborhood. Green dots on perimeter columns make a visual transition to the surrounding landscape. Overhead lighting is pending. Columnseum is sculpture as painting, an unexpected site treatment that in its application brightens and reflects light as well as bringing order and clarity to the site.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Hoggatt, Tina
  • Brunner, Cath
  • Fox, Willow
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 90th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2011-1-23 to 2011-1-27
• Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Photos;
• Pagination: 19p
• Monograph Title: TRB 90th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Art; Bus transit; Commuting; Lighting; Park and ride; Parking facilities; Public participation; Public transit; Traffic flow; Wayfinding
• Uncontrolled Terms: Public spaces
• Geographic Terms: Seattle (Washington)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Public Transportation; Society; I15: Environment; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01333491
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 11-3617
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Mar 21 2011 2:14PM