The Nordic Museum’s Grand Opening is Coming Soon
After a decade’s worth of planning, one of the city’s most beloved cultural institutions has a new HQ
By Gwendolyn Elliott February 27, 2018
This article appears in print in the March 2018 issue, as part of the Spring Arts Preview. Click here to subscribe.
It’s been nearly ten years since the leaders of Seattle’s Nordic Heritage Museum, long housed in a brick schoolhouse on loan from Seattle Schools, began the effort to locate, finance and construct a permanent home for the city’s—and nation’s—only museum that celebrates all the Nordic cultures (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden).
Prepare to be dazzled—albeit in understated Scandinavian style—when the brand-new 57,000-square-foot, Mithun-designed facility, rebranded simply as The Nordic Museum, officially opens the doors to its new home, about a mile south of its former location, in May.
A showpiece for forward-thinking Nordic design (according to Architectural Digest and the New York Times, it’s one of the most anticipated international museums opening this year), the ground-level corridor resembles a fjord; overhead, second-story walkways act as bridges, stitching together a core collection of permanent, historical exhibits, with temporary installations that explore contemporary Nordic culture.
The Nordic regard for purposeful, multiuse spaces is on view everywhere, from new classrooms, a craft studio and a state-of-the-art auditorium to the practical, quiet and efficient Kone elevators, made by a Finnish company. Grand opening 5/5–5/6.
Grand opening times and prices unannounced at press time. Regular museum hours and prices vary. Nordic Museum, Ballard, 2655 NW Market St., 206.789.5707; nordicmuseum.org
Follow Us
Photo Essay: Ferry Therapy
Words and photographs by Anna Starr.
Riding the ferry is my favorite Seattle pastime. At any given time on a Washington State Ferry you will find a group of tourists with too many suitcases, someone in work clothes peacefully napping, a jigsaw puzzle diligently being completed, lovers having a Titanic-esque moment on a balcony (fun fact: those balconies are called pickleforks),…
AANHPI Month: Where to Celebrate, Eat, and Learn Around Seattle
From festivals and museum exhibits to food tours and historic neighborhoods, here are a few ways to mark the month across the region.
Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month—known as AANHPI Month—is observed in the U.S. each May. It began as a weeklong observance in 1978 and expanded to the full month in 1992. Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in the United States extend back much further, including to the late 16th century, when…
Black Panther Park in Skyway Becomes First Black Panther Park in the World
The new community garden honors the Black Panther Party’s legacy of food justice and the Skyway neighbors who helped bring it to life.
On a sunny Sunday earlier this month, at the corner of 75th Avenue and Renton Avenue South, the community gathered for the opening of Skyway’s Black Panther Park. Inspired by the Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for School Children program that compelled the federal government to provide breakfast in schools, Black Panther Park is a community…
Rearview Mirror: A Family Coming Apart, SIFF, and My First Fashion Show
Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).
The Family House A house can hold a lot, and Seattle Rep’s Appropriate knows that. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Tony-winning play, directed here by Timothy McCuen Piggee, drops the Lafayette siblings into their late father’s hoarded, falling-apart Arkansas plantation home for an estate sale, and lets the whole thing crack open from there. The sibling dynamics are…