Space Needle and Seattle skyline
— — the city that grew up around a fairground tower.
Not only on a wall.
“Built for the 1962 World's Fair and never taken down, the Space Needle still anchors the Seattle skyline at 605 feet. The view from the observation deck reaches Elliott Bay to the west, the Cascades to the east, and Mount Rainier to the south when the weather lifts. The downtown towers have grown up around it without ever quite overtaking it.
Space Needle and Seattle skyline, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Space Needle stands at Seattle Center in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood, on the site of the 1962 Century 21 World's Fair. The structure is 605 feet tall, with the observation deck at 520 feet and a rotating glass floor added in the 2018 renovation. The Seattle skyline behind it runs along Elliott Bay, anchored by Columbia Center at 933 feet — the tallest building in the Pacific Northwest — and historic Smith Tower in Pioneer Square. The Olympics rise to the west and Mount Rainier dominates the southern horizon.
Seattle gets roughly 152 sunny days a year, which means the skyline reads differently in every weather. On clear winter mornings Rainier appears behind the city in a way that surprises even residents; under overcast the towers turn flat silver against the cloud. Sunset comes off Puget Sound and lights the west faces of the buildings for about twenty minutes. The Space Needle's exterior is repainted on a cycle to match its original Galaxy Gold and Astronaut White palette from 1962.
The Space Needle observation deck is open daily, with last entry typically forty-five minutes before closing. Tickets are timed, and the line for sunset slots sells out on clear evenings. The rotating glass-floor level, called The Loupe, sits one level below the main deck and turns through a full revolution in about forty-five minutes. Below it Chihuly Garden and Glass shares the campus with the Pacific Science Center and the Museum of Pop Culture, all reachable on foot from the Seattle Monorail's Westlake station.