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Columnseum

Sheila Klein

Roosevelt-Green Lake Park & Ride

Hundreds of painted concrete columns give a sense of place to a dreary freeway underpass.

Sheila Klein. Columnseum, 2007. Painted concrete. Roosevelt-Greenlake Park & Ride, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: Alan Berner

A nondescript 10-acre Park & Ride sits under an elevated section of I-5, dividing Seattle’s Green Lake and Roosevelt neighborhoods. To improve the character of the streetscape, 4Culture led an extensive community listening process and, in 2002, hired artist Laura Haddad to produce an art plan for the site. Ultimately, Sheila Klein was selected to transform the underpass, creating Columnseum, a “sculptural painting” designed to embrace the columns that support the interstate.

Klein and her team painted a total of 396 columns over the course of two phases. She used colors from the parking lot vernacular—safety yellow, striping white, and disabled parking blue—to create a series of graphic “dot and slot” shapes on the concrete, which she says “take bites” out of their intimidating bulk. Glossy white circles in receding moon shapes lend lightness, green ovals connect the human-made structure with the surrounding greenery, yellow frames energize, and tall blue slots bring a slice of the sky down to the ground. These colors and shapes not only break up the visual monotony of the space, they serve as functional wayfinding markers for people using the Park & Ride.
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Sheila Klein. Columnseum, 2007. Painted concrete. Roosevelt-Greenlake Park & Ride, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: 4Culture
Sheila Klein. Columnseum, 2007. Painted concrete. Roosevelt-Greenlake Park & Ride, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: 4Culture
Sheila Klein. Columnseum, 2007. Painted concrete. Roosevelt-Greenlake Park & Ride, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection. Photo: 4Culture

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