Medical Dental Building
- Year
- 1925
- Style
- Gothic Revival
- City
- Seattle, WA
The Medical Dental Building rose on Olive Way in 1925 as a purpose-built home for Seattle's doctors and dentists, proposed in 1921 by a group of businessmen from those professions and paid for at a cost of $2 million. Owned by the Bradner family, the 18-story tower used reinforced concrete construction so extensively that it ranked as the third-tallest building in the world built exclusively that way when it opened. Nearly a century later it still functions much as intended, housing medical and dental practices alongside retail space.
the building
Terra cotta over concrete. The tower's Late Gothic Revival skin is terra cotta cladding wrapped around a concrete frame rather than a steel skeleton -- the choice that let it claim its record as one of the tallest buildings anywhere built exclusively of reinforced concrete.
The 1950 addition. A Moderne-style addition in 1950 extended the building eastward and renovated most of the original 1925 structure, layering a second design era onto the tower.
Built by dentists and doctors. The building exists because a group of medical and dental businessmen organized in 1921 to build their own headquarters; A.W. Quist Company served as general contractor for the $2 million project.
the style
The 1925 tower was designed in the Late Gothic Revival mode, its terra cotta ornament applied over a concrete frame -- a decorative language later partly overwritten when the 1950 Moderne-style addition extended and renovated the building.
More on Gothic Revivalthe architect
John Alfred Creutzer (1874-1929) designed the building, with Abraham H. Albertson (1872-1964) supervising construction and A.W. Quist Company serving as general contractor.
significance
The building is a Seattle City Landmark (#292) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, designated on January 20, 2007. As of 2019 it held 130 tenants across 300,000 square feet of office space, still operating as medical and dental offices plus retail.
nearby
- Times Square Building
- Shafer Building/6th and Pine Building
- Northern Bank and Trust/Seaboard Building
- Coliseum Theater
- Liggett/4th and Pike Building
- Grand Pacific Hotel