Museum of Pop Culture, Contemporary culture museum in Seattle Center, United States
The Museum of Pop Culture is a 140,000-square-foot building designed by Frank Gehry, clad in crumpled silver panels and a curved wall of purple, magenta and blue. A band of green trees stands before it, partly hiding the lower levels and the seam between the silver and coloured sections. It rises behind a paved open area.
Paul Allen founded the museum as the Experience Music Project, which opened in 2000. The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, founded by Allen and his sister Jody Patton, opened in the same building on June 18, 2004, with an advisory board including Steven Spielberg, Ray Bradbury, James Cameron and George Lucas. That permanent science-fiction collection was de-installed in March 2011 and replaced in June 2012 by the exhibit Icons of Science Fiction. The museum took the name Museum of Pop Culture in November 2016.
The museum's name changed with its mission: founded as the Experience Music Project, it became EMP Museum and took the name Museum of Pop Culture in November 2016. Its public programs include Sound Off!, an annual battle-of-the-bands for musicians 21 and under, and the Pop Conference, an annual gathering of academics, critics and musicians. Since 2007 it has given a Founders Award to recording artists.
The facility operates daily from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM at 325 5th Avenue North with full wheelchair access throughout all exhibition areas. Advance ticket purchase online reduces wait times during peak summer months and weekends. Seattle Center location provides proximity to other attractions, restaurants and public transit including the Monorail.
The building's forms were developed from images of Stratocasters and guitar bodies, as Gehry explained of the design process. Critics were divided: the New York Times called it something that crawled out of the sea and died, Forbes listed it among the world's ten ugliest buildings, and locals nicknamed it The Blob. Several images of the EMP were shipped as desktop wallpapers in Windows 7.
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