“Jim Olson: Architecture for Art” was the first comprehensive exhibition devoted to the career of Jim Olson, one of the Northwest’s most significant architects and founding partner of Olson Kundig. Originally organized by the Museum of Art at Washington State University, the exhibit also traveled to the Lightcatcher Museum in Bellingham, Washington.
Photo: Benjamin Benschneider
Jim Olson: Architecture for Art—A Retrospective Exhibit
Pullman, Washington
The exhibit provided a retrospective of Olson’s first fifty years in architecture, highlighting his residential legacy, including his own homes—an apartment in downtown Seattle and his cabin on Puget Sound—as well as his public design work, which encompasses the Lightcatcher Museum in Bellingham, St. Mark’s Cathedral and the Pike & Virginia Building in Seattle, and the architecture for the Noah’s Art Exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
Along with the projects themselves, the exhibition explored the artistic, cultural, natural and personal influences that have made Olson’s career so highly regarded by his peers and sought after by clients. “Architecture for Art” includes a range of materials that showcased Olson’s process, including notebooks and ephemera, original sketches and drawings, stunning large-scale photo displays, and models. Original artwork from selected residences, as well as a custom-designed art installation, provided visitors with a first-hand experience of Olson’s use of space and collaboration with art.
Jim Olson: Art in Architecture—A Retrospective Exhibit
Bellingham, Washington
Japanese American National Museum
Los Angeles, California
Team
Publications
2011
“Calendar.” AZURE, Sept. 2011, 60. Print.
“Jim Olson exhibit at WSU this month.” Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, 21 Sept. 2011, 3. Print.
Sudermann, Hannelore. “Homes for art.” Washington State Magazine, Winter 2011, 21-22. Print. Web.
Welton, J. Michael. “Jim Olson: An Architect for Art.” Architects + Artisans, 7 July 2011. Web.
Welton, J. Michael. “Jim Olson: Architecture for Art.” Design Bureau, Nov. 2011, 76. Print.