Architecture

The Experience Music Project located next to the Space Needle

Nearly 70% of the buildings in Seattle were built between 1960 and 2000 and about 18% of the buildings were built before 1940. In addition, Seattle also has many new buildings, including the 2000 Experience Music Project. This building cost a total of $240 million and was designed by Frank Gehry. Another modern and striking building is the Central Library, which dates from 2004 and was designed by the Dutch Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus.

City silhouette

According to itypejob, Seattle has 38 buildings that are higher than 100 meters and one other structure that also exceeds 100 meters. This is the 184 meter high Space Needle. Of the buildings above 100 meters, the 1914 Smith Tower is the oldest building. This building is 140.8 meters high and was intended to be the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, which it took 17 years until the Kansas City Power and Light Building was built.

Seattle’s tallest building since 1985 has been the 284.2-meter-tall Columbia Center. This building stands next to the Seattle Municipal Tower, which is the fourth tallest building at 220.1 meters. Parts of the municipality are also located in this building.

Sports

CenturyLink Field during an American football game

Seattle is often seen as a city with poor sports teams. Seattle ranked first in Forbes ‘ annual list of the worst sports cities in the United States in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013, and second in 2008 and 2012.

Seattle’s professional American football team is the Seattle Seahawks, who play at CenturyLink Field. The Seattle Seahawks have won the National Football League once in 2014 since their inception in 1977. They first appeared in the Super Bowl in 2006, when they lost 10-21 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. They won the award in 2014 when they defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8.

Seattle also has a professional baseball team. This is the Seattle Mariners. This baseball team has been playing at the Safeco Field since 1999. The Seattle Mariners have never won Major League Baseball since their inception in 1977. The baseball team did win the American League West, a competition between baseball teams from the western United States, once in 1995.

Seattle also had a professional basketball team until 2008. These were the Seattle SuperSonics, which had the KeyArena as their home base. This basketball team reached the finals of the National Basketball Association once in 1978, when they lost 3-4 to the Washington Bullets. In 2008, the team moved to Oklahoma City and changed its name to Oklahoma City Thunder. Four years after the move in 2012, the Oklahoma City Thunder was in the National Basketball Association finals. Seattle has also had a professional women’s basketball team since 2000. This is Seattle Storm, who won the Women’s National Basketball Association in 2010.

Seattle Sounders FC is Seattle’s professional soccer team and plays at CenturyLink Field. The soccer team has won Major League Soccer twice since its inception in 2007, in 2016 and 2019.

The US Hardcourt WTA Tournament was hosted in Seattle in 1952 and 1962. The 1990 Goodwill Games were also held in the city. Another major sporting event held in Seattle was WrestleMania XIX in 2003.

Seattle is also where one can find the Geocaching HQ . Geocaching is a game in which you can search for geocaches in different places in the world on the basis of coordinates and a GPS receiver. A sort of treasure hunt in the real world.

Music

Seattle was an important city in the music industry, especially in the 90s. This was due to the origin of the grunge music movement. The four main bands within this movement were Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Except for Nirvana, all these bands are from Seattle. The grunge became less active after the suicide of Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, on April 5, 1994, and after the death of Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley, that same day in 2002.

Post- grunge emerged shortly after Kurt Cobain’s suicide. The only well-known post-grunge band from Seattle is Candlebox.

Even before grunge came into existence in Seattle, there were well-known musicians from Seattle, including the influential Jimi Hendrix.

There are currently two major record labels based in Seattle. These are Sub Pop, which was also the record label of Nirvana and Soundgarden, and Barsuk Records. Today, the rapper Macklemore is one of the most famous musicians from Seattle. A song of his, called Thrift Shop, was number one in both the Dutch Top 40 and the Flemish Ultratop 50.

Media

Seattle is home to five regional newspapers and magazines, the largest of which is The Seattle Times with a daily circulation of 229,764. This newspaper is also the 27th newspaper in the United States. The other newspapers and magazines based in Seattle are: Blue City Monthly, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Weekly (circulation 78,000) and The Stranger (circulation 81,000). Of these newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, founded in 1863, is the oldest. This newspaper is now only available online.

There are 28 radio stations in Seattle, which are known to the Federal Communications Commission. KJR is the oldest of these radio stations and was founded on March 9, 1922.  In addition to radio stations, Seattle also has six television stations, which are known to the Federal Communications Commission. These are: KCTS-TV, KFFV, KING-TV, KIRO-TV, KOMO-TV and KZJO. KING-TV was founded on November 25, 1948, making it Seattle’s oldest television channel.

Seattle also has eight publishing houses, including the University of Washington publisher, University of Washington Press.

There are also several movies and television series set in Seattle. Notable television series set in Seattle include: The Killing, Frasier, Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, John Doe, Dark Angel, Dead Like Me, Life As We Know It, The 4400, iCarly, Kyle XY, and Reaper. Well-known films set in Seattle are: Sleepless in Seattle, An Officer and a Gentleman, Practical Magic, The Ring,10 Things I Hate About You en de Fifty Shades-trilogie.

Food and drink

There are almost 9,000 restaurants in the Seattle area, which is relatively high compared to the number of inhabitants. For example, Seattle ranked fifth on a list of US cities with the highest number of restaurants per capita. Only San Francisco, Fairfield County (Connecticut), Long Island and New York had more restaurants per capita. The number of bars per capita in Seattle is low compared to other US cities. Among these restaurants are also many fast food outlets such as McDonald’s, Subway, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hutand Dicks. The latter is only active in the Seattle area. In addition, there are also many Starbucks coffee houses in Seattle.