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Seattle Art

The Frye Art Museum was another transformative project, opening in 1997, the same year as Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Bilbao. That was during the dot-com economic boom, when public and private dollars funded a generation of art museums around the world.

Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen designed a comprehensive remodel and significant expansion for the Frye. The project included a new entry arcade that knit together additions and existing architecture with public spaces, as well as a new cafe, curatorial wing, and sculpture garden, while also enhancing the museum's relationship with the surrounding street. Although art's interaction with sunlight is always an area of concern, the design cleverly brings diffuse natural illumination into the building in strategic places.

Artful Homes

The firm is also known for creating residential architecture that integrates substantial private art collections.

They don't get much more substantial than the collection profiled in the 2006 book Art + Architecture: The Ebsworth Collection & Residence. Works by such seminal 20th-century American artists as Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keefe, Jasper Johns, and David Hockney are displayed inside the Ebsworth Residence (2003) in Seattle.

Yet the wooded site was treated with equal reverence. The footprint of the house shifts back and forth to preserve as many of the second-growth trees as possible, and the home's planted roof provides habitat for small creatures. The resulting design weaves art into the home and the house into nature, creating a comfortable yet exceptionally majestic place to live.

Another art-centric residence is the House of Light (2006) in Bellevue, Washington. A series of skylights and glass facades make the interior feel as bright as the outdoors, but much of the light is shaded and diffuse, protecting the artwork and softening the ambiance.

With its low-rise horizontal form and a subtle array of landscaping, the building is also stitched into its environment, encouraging movement inside and out. The structure includes a spinelike band of light that runs the length of the home, culminating in a monumental installation by artist James Turrell, a pioneer of the Southern California "Light and Space" movement.

Of the Northwest

Like its buildings, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects cannot be understood without appreciating the firm's context in the Northwest. There is a long regional tradition of buildings that consider light and other natural resources, and that integrate into the topography. But it's no simple task to achieve the refined brand of regional modern design that this firm performs.

"There is a quiet assertiveness to all of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen's work," writes architecture critic Paul Goldberger of The New Yorker in the introduction to Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen: Art, Architecture, and Craft, a 2001 retrospective of their residential work.

"And assertiveness is at least as important as quiet in this equation. The notion of comfortable monumentality, which so much of the time in American architecture is an oxymoron, precisely captures what Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen at their best represent."

That "comfortable monumentality" also exists in the character of the firm and its leaders, who eschew competitiveness in favor of cordiality. "Here [in Seattle] some of my best friends are architects and competitors of ours," Sundberg says. "Bob Hull and I, when we used to compete, each guy who won had to buy the other a beer. We still go to the mats for a project. But we try to be really as generous as we can."

Intentional Generalists

For Kundig, the firm's attraction is its collaborative culture. "We specifically avoid studios or specialization or anything like that," he explains. "We don't feel it's the most conducive. Here we don't need to hold a charrette with our employees; it's going on all day."

While a book from book from Princeton Architectural Press focuses on Kundig's house designs, he's currently working on a 37-story hotel-condo tower. That kind of diversification runs throughout the firm.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The Chicken Point Cabin overlooks Hayden Lake in northern Idaho. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider Extra Large Image A 2008 residence in Montecito, California, was designed for the fire-prone Toro Canyon. Photo: Tim Bies/ Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects Extra Large Image The steel and concrete exterior of the Studio House (1998) in North Seattle. Photo: Benjamin Benschneider Extra Large Image SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The Mission Hill Winery is set into a hillside, with production facilities at ground level and an L-shaped subterranean cellar below. Photo: Paul Warchol Extra Large Image The loggia at Mission Hill Winery projects beyond the hillside, offering views of the Okanagan Valley. Photo: Robin Thom Extra Large Image SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen designed the Mission Hill Family Winery in British Columbia. Photo: Robbie Jackson Extra Large Image Curving concrete ribs reinforce the barrel-vaulted cellar ceilings. Photo: Robin Thom Extra Large Image Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen renovated St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. Photo: Bob Cerelli Extra Large Image The original construction on St. Mark's Cathedral was halted during the Great Depression. Some parts remained incomplete or inadequate until the 1998 renovation. Photo: Bob Cerelli Extra Large Image Designed for a constrained urban site in Denver, Colorado, the Red House is also home to an art collector. Photo: Bruce van Inwegen Extra Large Image   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.