Wow, that is so neat! Thank you for sharing. :)

Very cool!

They need a Carpenter on it too.

XD I kind of wish there were more buildings like that.

I wish they'd quit knocking them down.

That... is seriously cool.

Fascinating :O What happened to all the cool architecture of old? I want flying buttresses again.

Thanks. I need they walrii.

that flesh-coloured area beneath the walrus head looks really strange. what were they thinking?

Excuse me? What did you say about my building? That's a cartouche. Normally on top of a cartouche sits a greenman, in this case it's a walrus. Where do you live? Do live in the city or the suburb?

of course it's a cartouche. but what was there originally? and why is it flesh-coloured? is it meant to look like a pasty white guy wearing a walrus fursuit with a naked stomach?

i live in the city, yes.

One, eighty years in the sun has faded the glaze a little bit. It was red originally. Two, I know classical revival buildings are alwasy bone white, but original classical architecture was brightly colored. Some architects try to emulate this, this building was originally yellow, red and blue and white but the red has faded to flesh and the yellow has faded entirely. Three, the cartouche has been in use since the classical era. Originally they were convex mirrors and were used indoors, their purpose was to reflect torchlight and skylight. Being as they had become a recrognizable shape, at some point two thousand years ago architects began putting them on the facade, sans the mirror. A fifteen hundred years of no interest in classical architectural, then BAM! Second classical age, otherwise known as the Baroque era. Everything is revived and elaborated upon. Revivalist styles flitter in and out over the next four centuries until culminating in the last unique classical revival, Beaux-Arts. Very popular here in Seattle. So, the architect carefully draws in various interpretations of classical ornament, with various elaborations in accordance with modern style and whatever the other architects are doing. It's meant to look like the recognizable shape of a cartouche, (convex mirror used to reflect torchlight,) crested by a walrus, instead of a greenman.

This is a cartouche in an Italianate setting, sans greenman.
http://teasmoke.net/sofar/photograp.....l-building.jpg

This is a cartouche and greenman in another Beaux-Arts setting.
http://www.furnation.com/Ahundred/Greenman.jpg

Basically, it's a joke. Instead of the traditional greenman it's a walrus. It was painted red originally because white would have been boring. Eighty years of sun made it flesh colored.

aha!

Don't talk smack about architecture. It's all I have left in the world, aside from furry porn.

well this conversation suddenly took a very depressing turn.

i still say it looks like a very unappealing stomach. regardless.

That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It's not even supposed to be pink, the building was just taken care of poorly in the last ninety years. And this is a very common form of decoration. If you knew anything about architecture or even looked up every once and a while you'd recognize it.

i'm not talking about what it used to look like or what form of decoration it is or whether on not i recognize it. i'm talking about what it looks like today. at this moment. in your picture above.

intent and outcome are rarely coincident. the architect may not have meant it to look like a stomach. that doesn't matter. what matters is what it does look like. check this link for more on that:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/2.....ng-up-swa.html

maybe you should try to read what i'm actually writing, and not what you think i'm writing.

I read what you wrote and I thought it was bloody stupid. I thought you were asking me a question about the origin of this particular architectural element, but it seems you just wanted to say it looks dumb.

Wow, that's beautiful. Your analitical descriptions made it all the more better too, now I'm interested on what was the whole focus of the Seattle architecture on that time.

One notable aspect of Seattle architecture in our golden age, (from just after the fire in 1889 to World War II,) is the predominance of terra cotta. Terra facades were waterproof, fireproof, easy to mold into various architectural elements, and were available in a variety of bright colors, something of which we really took advantage once Art Deco came around. Manufacturing the terra-cotta bricks and tiles was a booming business.

The predominate styles depend on where you are, in Pioneer Square, the oldest part of town, Richardsonian Romanesque is the style, as much of the area was built in the eighteen-nineties. Facades were composed of ashlar, exposed masonry and unglazed terra cotta ornament. Newer buildings in that area were often built in the Italianate style, as not to clash with the existing structures. Elsewhere in the city gleaming terra-cotta Beaux-Arts, Gothic Revival, Byzantine Revival and Art Deco towers rose to the heavens, or as close to which the construction methods of the day would bring them.

In domestic architecture, the Craftsman bungalow reigns supreme. I can see eight of them out my window right now.

Goo goo g'joob.

Ah, how I wish that they would re-re-revive classical architexture!

Really, I'd love to have a building covered with walruses (is that even the proper plural of walrus?).

I'm the Walrus!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42luHhrsNhg