Olympic Sculpture Park

Olympic Sculpture Park is a free outdoor sculpture park at 2901 Western Avenue on the Elliott Bay waterfront, at the edge of the Belltown district in Seattle, Washington. Operated by the Seattle Art Museum, the nine-acre site was built on a former industrial fuel-storage property and is laid out as a Z-shaped path that descends from a pavilion near the street down to the waterfront, crossing a railway line and a road on landscaped bridges. Large contemporary sculptures are set along the route. Visitors meet works such as Alexander Calder's red-orange Eagle, Richard Serra's steel curves in Wake, and Louise Bourgeois's Eye Benches, with Mark Dion's Neukom Vivarium displaying a fallen tree as a living installation. Plantings representing Pacific Northwest landscapes, including evergreen forest, a meadow and a shoreline garden, give the park a natural character, and the views across Puget Sound toward the Olympic Mountains frame many of the sculptures. The pavilion holds a small seasonal cafe and an indoor exhibition space. A visit generally takes one to one and a half hours, longer for those lingering with a picnic. The park is open daily from about 30 minutes before sunrise until 30 minutes after sunset and has no admission charge. Crowds are lightest on weekday mornings, and the park is busiest on sunny summer weekends and during evening events. Late afternoon provides soft light for photographs and sunset over the water. Visitors can reach it with King County Metro Route 24 or 33 to Elliott Avenue and West Broad Street, or walk the waterfront about a mile from Pike Place Market. The shoreline path continues to a small beach, and the park pairs naturally with a walk along Myrtle Edwards Park next door.