Seattle Historical Sites

Architect: Stanley Mar

Architect Stanley Mar, working for the I. M Carstensen Company, designed this building for the Graybar Electric Company in 1959. The building was completed in 1960. Both wings of the building were part of the original design. The building is a good example of Modernist architecture from the late 1950s/early 1960s,  particularly in the design of its northern office wing. The Graybar Electric Company, which now describes itself on the face of the building, as a “distributor of Electrical and Communication/Data Products,” still occupies the building. The building has a very good degree of integrity.  Like a few other Modernist buildings of this type in Seattle’s Industrial District, it combines a more typical office/ retail wing, with a wing that reflects its industrial uses

This building is located on the northwest corner of 6^th Avenue South and South Walker Street. Much of the structure is concrete, including its exterior walls, some of which are of concrete tilt-up construction. The building consists of two contrasting wings. A two-story north wing, which has a flat roof and parapet, includes offices and retail. A southern wing, the warehouse portion of the complex, has an interior structure, which includes a paired series of bow trusses. This condition is reflected in the two curved roofs, which rise behind and above a straight parapet. Below, the main elevation of the southern wing includes a continuous canopy, set over a loading platform, as well as service doors.

In contrast, the façade of the north wing looks more like a typical Modernist office wing. The façade is clearly divided into five bays by concrete vertical elements or pilasters, painted white. There are also similar vertical elements at the corners of the façade. The thin parapet coping and the concrete base are painted white, so that the whole façade is framed in a white rectangle. At the first two bays, areas within white frames are mainly clad in red brick veneer. The first two bays are entirely clad in brick within the white frames. The remaining three bays are similar, but all have a window at the second level framed at the top and bottom by thinner horizontal bands, painted white. The area inset around each window between the horizontal bands is also painted white to contrast with the brick. Below these windows, at the ground level, the first bay, (or the third counting from the first bay to the south), has a canopy set above a new aluminum sliding door, an entrance to the retail area. This is the most obvious change to the façade. The second bay has no openings, but there is a horizontal band at the same level as the canopies on the neighboring bays. The last bay at the ground level had a single glass door and sidelights, which are topped by transoms, all in simple aluminum frame. These are also topped by a canopy.