The Forbidden City has a branch office in downtown Seattle. The 5th Avenue Theatre, opened in September 1926 inside the Skinner Building at 1308 5th Avenue, has been called the largest and most authentic example of traditional Chinese timber architecture and decoration outside Asia: architect Robert C. Reamer and Norwegian-born designer Gustav Liljestrom modelled the interior on the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heavenly Peace and the Summer Palace, working from Ernst Boerschmann's illustrated C.....

A cornerstone of Seattle's performing-arts scene, A Contemporary Theatre, universally known as ACT, has been staging professional drama in the city since its founding in 1965. Now housed in the beautifully restored Eagles Auditorium Building on Union Street downtown, the company specialises in contemporary plays and new work, and the move into its landmark home gave it one of the most distinctive theatre complexes in the Pacific Northwest. The building is unusual in housing several performance .....

A working musician built the Pioneer Square clubhouse he always wanted to play. Baba Yaga at 124 South Washington Street is Seattle's morning, noon and night rock and roll clubhouse - the creation of Ryan Granger of local psych-rock outfit The Grizzled Mighty, who spent six months personally building out the storied multi-level space (past lives include the Last Supper Club and Box House) before opening in May 2024. The format runs the full day: house-roasted coffee and Mexican-inspired street .....

In the waterfront neighbourhood of Ballard in north-west Seattle, the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, almost universally known as the Ballard Locks, are one of the busiest sets of navigation locks in the United States and a much-loved free attraction for visitors and locals alike. Designed by United States Army Corps of Engineers Major Hiram M. Chittenden, the locks officially opened on 4 July 1917 to connect freshwater Lake Washington and Lake Union with the saltwater Puget Sound through the eight-m.....

Seattle's farm team plays in the basement. Barboza, under Neumos at 925 East Pike Street on Capitol Hill, opened in 2012 as the deliberate answer to a booking problem: an artist drawing 100 people looks lost in Neumos' 700-capacity room but packs a 200-capacity one, so the owners spent hundreds of thousands turning their unfinished basement into a proper club - real PA, real lights, low 2.5-foot stage, no barricade, no risers - built expressly for artist development. The formula has worked for .....

Seattle gave its symphony a full city block and a Chihuly chandelier. Benaroya Hall at 200 University Street opened on 12 September 1998, the 120-million-dollar downtown home of the Seattle Symphony made possible by the Benaroya family's 15-million-dollar founding gift - LMN Architects' glass-fronted block with acoustics by the legendary Cyril Harris, whose isolation engineering floats the concert rooms free of the bus tunnel and traffic rumbling directly beneath. The main room is the S. Mark T.....

A flatbed truck, five bands and a dildo ring toss grew into Seattle's defining urban festival. The Capitol Hill Block Party began in 1997 when Jen Gapay of Thirsty Girl Productions, put off by the corporate crowds of Bumbershoot, corralled five bands and a handful of DJs onto a small stage on 10th Avenue between Pike and Union - thrift-store furniture for seating, Blamo the Drunken Surly Clown for atmosphere - drawing a couple hundred neighbours to party in the open street for free. The neighbou.....

Capitol Hill's essential mid-size club has survived three ownership eras, a developer's chequebook and every wave of Seattle nightlife since grunge. Chop Suey at 1325 East Madison Street occupies a 1937 retail building at 14th and Madison that was converted to a nightclub in 2001 and opened in spring 2002 - replacing the punk-leaning Breakroom - under original owners Linda Derschang, Wade Weigel and Jeff O'Felt, the trio behind Capitol Hill institutions like Linda's Tavern, the Baltic Room, the .....

Seattle spent 1.15 billion dollars digging a brand-new arena out of the ground beneath a roof it refused to move. Climate Pledge Arena at Seattle Center opened on 19 October 2021 with a Foo Fighters and Death Cab for Cutie benefit concert, three days before Coldplay played the official ribbon-cutting and four before the expansion Seattle Kraken skated their first NHL home game. The building it replaced had opened on 21 April 1962 as architect Paul Thiry's Washington State Pavilion for the Centur.....

Pearl Jam's first five shows happened in this room, back when the band was still called Mookie Blaylock and the club was called the Off Ramp. El Corazon at 109 Eastlake Avenue East in Seattle occupies a building that has housed a live music venue, dance hall or bar continuously since 1910, cycling through names - Au Go Go, the Eastlake East Cafe, Sub-Zero, the Off Ramp, Graceland - before promoter and heavy-music lifer Dana Sims opened it as El Corazon on 4 February 2005. The Off Ramp years mad.....