Visiting art museums typically involves some sort of admission fee, but one that doesn’t is Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. It’s a nine-acre outdoor museum that’s operated by the Seattle Art Museum (SAM).
But unlike SAM, the cost to visit Olympic Sculpture Park is $free.99. It’s also open year-round from around sunrise to sunset.
The park first opened in 2007 and is definitely a gem in Seattle. It offers views of the city, Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains, and a number of intriguing art sculptures, all in a nice outdoor environment.
I visited Olympic Sculpture Park on a weekday afternoon when there were a handful of people walking, jogging, walking their dogs, or sitting on benches facing Puget Sound. There’s also a lot of green space to lay down a blanket or a mat for a picnic, or just to lie down and enjoy being outside.
There’s a modest amount of concrete/asphalt and gravel pathways that cut through the park that are nice to walk/run on, and provide a convenient viewpoint for many of the sculptures. It’s just important to make sure that wherever on the pathway you pause to look at the art, you don’t get in the way of people who are walking or jogging.
The sculptures are accompanied by small plaques that provide the title of the piece, the date it was created, the artist who created it, and some information about the artwork or a quote from the artist. If you’re interested in learning more about the sculptures selected for the park, a bit of its history, and more, the museum periodically offers tours throughout the year called “Site, Sculpture, Shoreline: Discover the Olympic Sculpture Park.” Upcoming tours can be found on the Seattle Art Museum calendar.
Olympic Sculpture Park is an intriguing place to visit in Seattle. Who can say no to being outdoors and the opportunity to study art at the same time?
It’s also not too far – just walking distance – from other Seattle attractions including the Space Needle and Chihuly Garden and Glass, and it’s about one mile away from the Gum Wall.
Olympic Sculpture Park is located at:
2901 Western Ave
Seattle, WA 98121
For more Information on Olympic Sculpture Park, click here.