Miller Hull

Fisher Pavilion is located in the heart of Seattle Center, the site of the 1962 World’s Fair and home to the city’s most recognizable icon – the Space Needle. The setting for festivals and community events ever since, the surviving buildings and pavilions lacked a true flexible event space for gatherings large and small, as well as a cohesive organizing element within the grounds.

In a collection of singular structures, Fisher Pavilion was designed as a kind of ‘anti-building’. Tucked under a public plaza opening to an iconic fountain at the center of the grounds, the earth-sheltered structure maintains and enhances views between buildings and public spaces by taking advantage of the natural grade-change and serving as a seamless transition for pedestrians navigating between buildings. With a wall of operable glazed garage doors, the building easily transitions from indoor to outdoor space to serve a variety of events. The building’s identity from the upper plaza is of concrete elevator towers and generous stairs and canopies hinting to activities below – while maintaining and contributing to a series of public open spaces among the most visited places in the state.

The flexibility of the building, with a nearly twenty-feet high, free-span event space with lighting, sound, and curtain pipe grid, serves as the backdrop for some of Seattle’s most well-loved events year after year. From festivals to conferences, exhibitions, catered events, and even an ice rink every winter, Fisher Pavilion serves as the city’s living room in the shadow of Seattle’s most iconic structure.