Background

Architecture Hall was completed in 1909 as a state-of-the-art college chemistry building. It was one of three permanent buildings promised to the University of Washington by the promoters of Seattle's first world's fair, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYPE). Most other buildings at the fair - although spectacular in appearance - were built cheaply and then demolished soon after the AYPE ended in October 1909. The major legacy of the fair today at UW is the landscaping of the south campus, including Rainier Vista and The Fountain.

At the AYPE in the summer of 1909, the future chemistry building held art exhibits and was known as "The Palace of Fine Arts." The first chemistry classes in the building, then named “Bagley Hall,” started in spring 1910. In 1937 the building became "Physiology Hall." Around 1950 the name changed again to "Architecture Hall," as it is known today.

The renovation in 2006-2007 was driven by the need for a seismic upgrade. That work allowed other improvements to be made in the building, most notably on the top floor. The renovation architect was Thomas Hacker Architects (THA) of Portland, Oregon, and the general contractor was Mortenson Construction.

An in-depth photo documentation of the renovation was supported by the UW academic departments of Architecture and Construction Management. Only a small fraction of those photos are shown at this web site. The historic photos on this page and elsewhere are courtesy of UW Special Collections.

About This Web Site

This web site is a chronological catalog of 125 or so emails with photos that I sent over 14 months to a "Loop Group" of 375 architecture students, faculty, alumni and others interested in the renovation of Architecture Hall.

As both a photographer of construction as well as the photography teacher here at the UW Dept. of Architecture, I acted as a "foreign correspondent" in 2006-2007, sending photos and text from the construction zones within the school's flagship building as it morphed from old to new. This kept the students, faculty and staff informed and involved in the reconstruction process during the year they were banished to Condon Hall.

This is not an official record of the renovation as might be told by the architects or contractors. Except for asking lots of questions of their on-site teams – to whom I am very grateful - I worked largely independently of them and photographed whatever I thought was interesting, and then told the stories accordingly. The text assumes the audience is already familiar with the building, or is at least very interested in it.

There are no photos of the exterior of the building at this web site, except for the three on this page and a 1908 construction photo in emails #24 and #31. Except for some brick cleaning, not much happened on the outside of the building. This project is all about what happened inside Architecture Hall in 2006-2007.

More Notes

This web site was created in August 2007 after the renovation was completed. Some of the original emailed texts have been copy edited, and minor errors are corrected. Major errors are left intact (and noted) because they are usually corrected in a later email.

The first six pages (#aa to #ff) are condensed from about ten emails sent to the UW architecture faculty beginning June 2, 2006. Then I started the larger "Construction Loop Group," and those emails are numbered #1 to #118, ending August 20, 2007. I went off-topic in #42 and #59, but include them here anyhow. I skipped #38 by accident.

Most photos were taken with a 10 megapixel Nikon D200 camera. Some were taken on large format 4x5" film. In late December 2006, I added High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography to the mix.

In sum, it was fun. And I hope everyone who uses the building can now have a better understanding of its history and how the new version came to be.

John Stamets
August 2007

Lecturer in Photography
Department of Architecture
Box 355720
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195

stamets@u.washington.edu