Located on the site of Seattle Pioneer Henry Yesler's home, The Pioneer Building is Seattle's most flamboyant and original interpretation of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. It was designed by Elmer Fisher, and its groundbreaking was the first to follow the Fire of '89. Though it remained half-completed until 1892, it was still sort of the flagship of post-fire construction in Seattle.

Its facade is composed of brick, cast iron, and both glazed and unglazed terra cotta, (that blue isn't paint. That's the glaze on the terra cotta.) Terra cotta, by the way, is thoroughly fire-proof, which is probably why it's so prevalent here, you know, city burnt to the ground.

This building is right in the middle of Seattle Underground territory, (in the 1890s following the fire we raised the entire then-downtown area by fifteen to thrity-five feet. To help with drainage.) This building, like all those built after the fire, were built in anticipation of the regrade even though it wouldn't be done for a while after it was completed. For several years its extravagant front entrance hung fifteen feet above the old sidewalk at the predicted height of the new street. Makeshift store fronts were set up in what would be its basement and people sort of continued on with their lives. After the regrading was complete, the original sidewalks and storefronts remained in use for a while, fifteen feet below the new street.

I am obsessed with this building, bits and pieces of it end up in my drawings a lot.