America's Favorite Seattle Architecture

I love the Central Library and every time I drive down 4th ave, I look forward to driving past it. I also was left wondering where the Space Needle was in there. Honestly, we could nitpick all day because Seattle is pretty underrepresented while half of the list is buildings in New York or Washington DC.

The library squats like some tessellated glass turd dropped by an enormous alien dog, completely contemptuous of its surroundings and oblivious to any context or history of the city it is in. (Some of the branch libraries, by contrast, are wonderfully integrated into their neighborhoods and regional sensibilities).

But yes, as a functional building (as opposed to an ideological construction), internal flow is my primary complaint. On my first visit I rode the elevator to the top floor and tried to walk down. Can't be done. There are floors you can get to by escalator but can't leave except by elevator. In fact, it's impossible to use the building witI know they put extra a/c in the elevator cars so you wouldn't mind riding with the homeless; I don't care. hout using the elevator, which absolutely sucks. I like using the stairs. I want to use the stairs. I should be able to use the stairs. I can't: an alarm sounds.

I agree -- this list is a little suspect, with a heavy Midwest edge. How can the Gateway Arch and the Cleveland Browns' football stadium make the list and the Space Needle and Salk Institute (featured in the film "My Architect") not?

I like the Central Library, too, even though I have the odd sense of being in a hive whenever I'm in there.

The Space Needle! Duh! I can't believe I forgot to mention that. And I can't believe it didn't crack the top 150.

I like the Seattle Central Library, myself, though I don't think the internal flow works as well as it should.

And I, too, would rank the Chrysler Building above the Empire State. But I'm not surprised that 1800 Americans, in aggregate, went the way they did.

Bleh, the Experience Library Project. Some good ideas, badly executed.

No mention of the Space Needle? The title does say "favorite" after all. Aren't favorites frequently photographed?

I'd put the Chrysler building higher (I actually prefer it to the Empire State) but that's quibbling. Not sure what the White House is doing in there, though; there are better examples of neo-classical Americanism, several of them nearby in Washington.

And the World Trade Center in the top ten? Is this a case of sense being subordinated to sentiment? Never mind the issue of it no longer existing (if vanished icons can be considered, where's the old Penn Station?) I was fairly traumatized by 9/11, but even at the time, in a fit of black humor, I had to admit bin Laden at least had a good sense of architectural criticism.