Sound Garden is a perfect blend of art, music and nature. This outdoor installation is tucked away on the NOAA campus in Seattle (next to Magnuson Park) overlooking the beautiful Lake Washington. It’s made up of twelve steel towers, pipes and weather vanes that rotate and produce eerie sounds every time the wind blows.
Photo by The Kozy Shack on Flickr
“Sound Garden” was installed by Douglas Hollis from 1982-83, and is now one of six artworks on the NOAA Art Walk. With its prime spot and unique audio/visual features, the installation inspired the Seattle-based rock band Soundgarden.
Photo by The Kozy Shack on Flickr
The artwork consists of twelve steel towers, all 21 feet high. They each have an organ-like pipe and weather vane at the top that rotate when it’s windy (which happens to be quite often in Seattle) and produces soft horror movie-like tones.
Photo by Flickr/The Kozy Shack
Sound Garden is free and open to the public to visit – however you do need a photo ID of some sort (like a driver’s license, state ID, student ID, etc). The NOAA campus is open on weekdays 9am to 5pm, with entry allowed until 3:30.
Photo by The Kozy Shack on Flickr
The installation may not play “Black Hole Sun” but these wind-produced sounds are still pretty amazing to hear. Especially in this older clip below from Marty Hoban – he even caught some crows during his visit and it amps up the spookiness:
What an awesome installation. Have you visited the Sound Garden in Seattle before? Or would you like to check it out sometime?
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