Seattle Municipal Tower

The Seattle Municipal Tower is a Postmodernist skyscraper designed by Bassetti Architects, and built between 1987 and 1990, for a reported $200 million dollars, in Seattle, WA.

Seattle Municipal Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. It is common for companies to want to attach their names to iconic buildings when they move in, or for the general public to come up with nicknames, and this one is no exception. The building has changed names several times over the years, and is also known as:

• AT&T Gateway Tower between 1990 and 1996.
• Key Tower between 1996 and 2004.
• Seattle Municipal Tower from 2004 until this day.

Its precise street address is 700 Fifth Avenue, Seattle, WA. You can also find it on the map here.

In 2021 the Seattle Municipal Tower was awarded with the BOMA International TOBY Award.

The building underwent a major restoration in 2003.

Bassetti Architects was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the Seattle Municipal Tower a reality:

• Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire in charge of Structural Engineering
• University Mechanical Contractors as the Main Contractor

The Seattle Municipal Tower can be categorized as a Postmodernist building.

The Seattle Municipal Tower was completed in 1990. By 1990 the Postmodernism movement was experiencing a transition. Critics argued that Postmodernism, initially a rebellious and innovative style, had become formulaic and commercialized, and so the trend started moving away from blending historical styles, irony, and playful ornamentation, and begun to give way to emerging architectural trends concerned with more present matters such as technology, ecology or sustainability.

The Seattle Municipal Tower uses a frame structure made of steel columns and concrete and steel slabs.

A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.

The facade uses a window wall system, which by itself is non-load-bearing. However, in this case, the facade is technically load-bearing, since there are structural elements that have been integrated into it, adirectly influencing the facade’s design.

Window walls are easier to install than curtain walls, often resulting in reduced construction time and cost. However, the exposed edge of the slabs, and in this case other structura elements too, are weak points in terms of thermal insulation. These areas need to be carefully detailed to prevent thermal bridging and potential condensation issues.

The frame structural design consists of four circular super-columns (which can be appreciated on the facades), and an array of smaller columns.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features toasted-tone stone cladding the exposed structure and framing the horizontal groups of windows on each level.

The building is topped with a large glass gable roof with a curved ridge line.