Does Seattle need a giant floating jelly bean?
May 29, 2012, 10:42 AM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 1:36 pm
The design for a |
How would you feel about a giant floating jelly bean
replacing Memorial Stadium at Seattle Center?
A design called the ‘Seattle Jelly Bean’ is among three
finalists in the Urban Intervention Design Ideas
Competition to come up with ideas for the space.
“The Jelly Bean is a floating object that generates
various interactions between park visitors, publics at
Center Core and communities in distance,” says the
description from Praud, the Boston firm that came up with
the design.
View Seattle Jelly Bean design concept:
“I thought it was publicity for a UFO conference or
something,” says 97.3 KIRO FM host Dave Ross after he
spotted the design at Seattle’s Folklife Festival.
The illustration shows a floating oval shaped ‘jelly bean’
attached by tethers to the ground.
“That’s great stuff,” says Ross. “I think that’s exactly
the kind of thing we should do, something that gets you
into the magazines, that people say, ‘Wow. Why did they
build that thing? I’ve got to see it, as crazy as it may
be.'”
Ross and Burbank Show co-host Luke
Burbank agrees the design is pretty eye catching.
“It looks awesome,” says Burbank, who says it reminds him
of another bean in Chicago.
“There’s this thing in Millennium Park, which is called
the bean,” says Burbank. “There are always tourists
flocking around it. It’s really fun to go check out.”
From Burbank’s observation, Chicago’s bean has been a huge
draw.
“If anybody from Seattle or elsewhere is trying to think
about ways to revitalize an urban park, or an urban space,
go check this place out. Millennium Park is incredible,”
says Burbank. “Everybody in Chicago goes there now.
They’ve just done this amazing job with it.”
Ross agrees a new jelly bean, combined with all Seattle’s
existing attractions, should be very compelling for
tourists.
“We have the EMP with its broken guitar motif, then the
Chihuly Glass Museum, with artificial see-through flowers,
the rotating Space Needle restaurant, and a giant floating
jelly bean. Who would not come here to see all that
stuff?”
With the new Ferris wheel coming to Seattle’s waterfront,
Ross says the city is going to be just like Disneyland.
“Seattle is a town on the move,” says Burbank.
Listen to full Seattle Jelly Bean discussion:
>>Check out the other design contest
finalists
By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
