The founder of Olson Kundig, Jim Olson has explored the aesthetic interplay of art, nature, and architecture for over sixty years. His career is marked by significant projects throughout the Pacific Northwest and around the world, worldwide publication and speaking engagements, and several exhibitions of his designs, including a traveling retrospective. Under his leadership, Olson Kundig has evolved to become a multi-disciplinary practice, globally renowned for its design and craft.
Architecture should fit into its context in a way that makes a better whole.
Jim Olson
Principal / Founder | FAIA
Contextual Harmony
Inspired by the relationship between architecture, art and nature, Jim has designed residential projects across the globe, often for art collectors. Always exploring the relationship between interior and exterior, Jim creates homes that offer intimate settings for living with art and nature, such as An American Place, House of Light and Hong Kong Villa. His projects are characterized by a sensitivity to light and space in service to the unique artworks displayed, and to each site’s natural attributes.
Jim is equally passionate about making architecture that enhances the urban context. His commitment to creating a thriving community is best exemplified in Seattle, where his work has powerfully altered the city’s fabric. The award-winning mixed-use Pike and Virginia Building—the first new mid-rise constructed in Pike Place Market in fifty years—originated a style of architecture in the neighborhood. This building, along with Jim’s wide range of international residential and commercial work, expresses the power of contextual design: architecture that fits into the cultural, social, and economic milieu of both the built and natural environments.
I’ve spent my career incorporating art into my architecture. I often design for art collectors, and I try to let the sensibility of their collection lead me to an appropriate architectural expression. I love collaborating with artists—their way of thinking about a project is always inspiring.Jim Olson, FAIA
Principal / Founder
Industry Recognition and Engagement
Jim’s work has been widely recognized through a range of national and international awards, including citations from the American Institute of Architects, the Chicago Athenaeum, and the American Association of Museums. He has also received many individual honors over the course of his career, including the AIA Seattle Medal of Honor, the Federación de Colegios de Arquitectos de la República Mexicana or the FCARM Medal, and induction into Interior Design magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2012, as well as being named a tastemaker by Wallpaper* magazine.
Under Jim’s leadership, Olson Kundig received the 2009 National AIA Architecture Firm Award, has been named one of the Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Architecture by Fast Company four times, and has appeared on Architectural Digest’s AD100 list 15 times.
Jim has lectured extensively throughout North America on the relationship between architecture, art and nature, and in 1999, he served as the Bruce Goff Chair of Creative Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architecture, and was honored for his contributions to the practice at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C. He has also served on the boards of a number of Northwest arts and community institutions, including the Seattle Art Museum.
Our homes and cities are as much a part of nature as birds’ nests and beehives. Our role as architects is to fit human life into the world in an intelligent and meaningful way.Jim Olson, FAIA
Principal / Founder
Worldwide Publication
Jim’s work has appeared in publications worldwide, including The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Art + Auction, Dwell, the Wall Street Journal, Monocle and Interior Design. He also has a collection of four monographs – Jim Olson: Building • Nature • Art; Jim Olson: Art in Architecture; Jim Olson Houses; and Art + Architecture: The Ebsworth Collection and Residence, which focuses on the Olson-designed home of an art collector.
Exhibitions
“Jim Olson: Architecture for Art” was the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to Jim’s career. The exhibit—which featured 27 of his touchstone projects, a full-scale diorama of his cabin and a mural room—debuted at the Museum of Art at Washington State University in October of 2011. In 2013, the exhibit traveled to the Lightcatcher at the Whatcom Museum, a space Jim designed.
In 2015, “Jim Olson: Home Base” opened at University of Washington’s Gould Hall. The exhibition presented an intimate portrait of Jim and his architectural legacy, from his first project in 1959 to his ongoing work for clients around the world. At the age of eighteen, Jim began work on a bunkhouse for his family in Longbranch, Washington. Since then, he has continued to expand the small structure into both a private retreat and a touchpoint for his work worldwide. “Home Base” documents the design and redesign of Jim’s Longbranch Cabin over 56 years through photos, architectural models, sketches and selected ephemera: the subsequent evolution of his coinciding—and still thriving—architectural career.
Architecture not only provides shelter but also enhances the human experience. It creates pleasure, provides meaning, and inspires. Buildings are an extension of our dreams and aspirations, being both for us and about us.Jim Olson
Principal / Founder
Jim on Play
Visit Play to dig deeper into stories from Olson Kundig projects and people, including recorded interviews, design features, site visits, Speaker Series presentations, and more!
Seattle Design Center
50 Years of Design – Seattle Design Center 50th Anniversary
Inspired Design
Jim Olson | Harmonious Habitat
USModernist Radio - Architecture You Love
Seattle Modernism: Jim Olson + Musical Guest Erin Boheme
Olson Kundig
Jim Olson Architecture: Connecting with Landscape, Art & Craft | Denver Art Museum
Olson Kundig
2016 Distinguished Alumni Award – Jim Olson
Nowness
In Residence: Jim Olson
Interior Design Magazine
An Interview with Jim Olson and Tom Kundig
The Rainier Club
Jim Olson: An Architect’s Journey
Olson Kundig
Jim Olson: Architecture for Art Exhibit Preview
Olson Kundig
Jim Olson lecture at Washington State University
Jim Olson: Building • Nature • Art
Thames & Hudson | 2018/05
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Jim Olson: Art in Architecture
Whatcom Museum | 2013/03
For over five decades, Seattle architect Jim Olson has cultivated an international following through his exploration of the relationships between art, architecture, and nature. Best known for his residences for art collectors, Olson’s attention to craft and the experience of space have led to this global appeal. Drawing upon Olson’s years of practice, Jim Olson: Art in Architecture reveals his many sources of inspiration and how the power of material and sensorial exploration have shaped his approach to design. Through journal sketches, personal observations, and images of built projects ranging from his own intimate cabin in Washington State to grand residences around the world, the reader gains deep insight into Olson’s architecture and its artistry. Essay by Ted Loos Published by Whatcom Museum
Jim Olson: Houses
The Monacelli Press | 2009/11
When architect Jim Olson designs a home, his distinctive aesthetic, elegant and understated, comes into play.
Art + Architecture: The Ebsworth Collection + Residence
William K. Stout | 2002/06
Art and architecture combined, and so did fine book making, resulting in this abundantly illustrated “walk-through” of the Seattle home of Barney A. Ebsworth, who is a major collector of modern American art. The design of his home demanded a special merging of the creativity of client and architect. The full-page color photos tell much of how the artworks fit the architecture, and vice versa. Essays written by National Gallery of Art scholars, abridged from Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection, tell about the individual works of art, including pieces by Hockney, Warhol, Johns, Calder, Hopper and Gorky, among others. Edited by Dung Ngo Published by William K. Stout
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects: Architecture, Art, and Craft
The Monacelli Press | 2003/01
Over 35 years, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects created a body of architecture recognized for its ability to merge notions of materiality, craft and lightness, all of which are richly demonstrated in their work on art collectors’ residences and art museums. The firm began its creative existence with architect Jim Olson, whose work in the late 1960s explored the complex relationship between dwellings and the landscape they inhabit. In the early 1970s the growing firm broadened its emphasis to include urbanism and the landscape of the city. Though firmly rooted in the regional features of the Pacific Northwest—its unique climate and dramatic landscape—the firm’s work extends beyond any regionalist classification. Instead, their projects are characterized by a relaxed modernism that is attuned to its regional context. Each of the projects featured in this volume exhibit a striking use of both natural and highly refined materials, masterful modulation of light, a careful balance between monumentality and intimacy, and frequent collaborations with artists and craftsmen, especially glass artists such as Ed Carpenter. Essay by Paul Goldberger Published by The Monacelli Press
Projects
Education
Master of Architecture, University of Washington