As others see Seattle

Witold Rybczynski has a slideshow essay at Slate about Seattle architecture that seems pretty superficial but perhaps indicative of what the city looks like to someone (or at least to an architecture critic) who doesn't live here. He doesn't talk about some of the other more recent monumental additions to the cityscape (i.e., the new Federal building and the new Washington Mutual tower), but perhaps more importantly, he doesn't talk about the boom in condos, let alone of townhouses, that has changed the face of the city and the neighborhoods in the last decade.

David Sucher at City Comforts apparently hasn't noticed it yet, but I imagine he wouldn't think highly of Rybczynski's focus on starchitecture and lack of attention to the street and the sidewalk. Rybczynski seems more interested in the city as art object. Still, his take on what makes Seattle unique is intriguing to these local eyes.