Exchange Building
A buff-brick Art Deco tower in Seattle’s financial district, bearing the geometric ornament of the Pacific Northwest’s commercial confidence in the late 1920s.
At a glance
Rising from Second Avenue in the heart of Seattle’s financial district, the Exchange Building was completed in 1930 as a hub for the city’s commercial and brokerage community. Its skin of buff-coloured brick punctuated by Art Deco terra cotta ornament remains largely intact, making it one of the clearest examples of the stripped commercial high-rise aesthetic in the American Pacific Northwest. The building takes its name from the exchange trading and financial activity that once animated its lower floors. It has been designated a Seattle Landmark for its architectural integrity and its role in the city’s downtown development history.
Key facts
- Location: Second Avenue, downtown Seattle, Washington
- Completed: 1930
- Style: Art Deco commercial tower
- Exterior: buff brick with terra cotta geometric ornament
- Function: office building (originally financial and brokerage use)
- Status: Seattle Landmark
History
Seattle in the late 1920s was building on a decade of sustained growth. Its port anchored transpacific trade routes, its lumber and fisheries industries were expanding, and the downtown financial district was generating demand for modern commercial space that older buildings could not satisfy. The Exchange Building was commissioned to serve this demand, providing floors of high-quality office space suited to the brokerage firms, insurance companies, and financial intermediaries that formed the backbone of Seattle’s downtown economy.
Construction was completed in 1930, the same year the stock market crash was beginning its long work on the American economy. Like many commercial buildings of the era, the Exchange Building opened into a changed market — tenants were harder to attract, rents were under pressure, and the confident growth projections of the late 1920s looked optimistic by the early 1930s. The building survived those years, however, and has remained a continuously occupied part of the downtown fabric. Its designation as a Seattle Landmark recognises both the quality of its Art Deco construction and its contribution to the city’s architectural heritage.
What you see
The Exchange Building’s street presence is defined by its buff brick skin and the terra cotta ornamental panels deployed at key vertical intervals — around the entrance, along the cornice line, and at the crown. The ornament is geometric rather than figurative, placing it firmly within the mainstream of 1920s American commercial Art Deco: lozenges, chevrons, and stylised botanical forms that add texture without disrupting the clean vertical lines of the facade. The base presents a three-story commercial frontage with generous window openings of the kind standard in Seattle’s banking and office blocks of the period.
Above the cornice, the tower rises in a slight setback, the decorative vocabulary lightening as the floors climb. The building’s crown terminates in a stepped cornice with additional terra cotta detail, providing a satisfying resolution to the upward movement without recourse to the more theatrical finials or setback pyramids found in East Coast Deco towers of the same period. Inside, the lobby retains elements of its original marble cladding and metalwork, typical of the quality standard expected by financial-district tenants of the era.
Practical information
- Hours: public lobby accessible during business hours (active commercial building)
- Note: please respect building tenants; upper floors are private office space
- Time needed: 15–20 minutes for exterior and lobby
Getting there
The Exchange Building is on Second Avenue in downtown Seattle, within the financial district. The nearest Link Light Rail station is University Street (approximately one block east, at Third Avenue and University Street), connecting directly to Sea-Tac Airport and Capitol Hill. Multiple King County Metro bus lines serve First and Second Avenues. Pike Place Market is approximately five minutes on foot to the north; the Seattle Art Museum is a short walk along First Avenue.
Nearby
- Seattle Art Museum (SAM) — First Avenue, one block north
- Smith Tower (1914) — Seattle’s first skyscraper, a few blocks south on Second Avenue
- Pike Place Market — five minutes on foot, at Pike Street and First Avenue
Sources
- Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board, designation report for the Exchange Building
- University of Washington Libraries, Seattle historical photography collections
- Pacific Northwest Quarterly, essays on Seattle commercial architecture
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Diventa un fotografo di Cultural Heritage Online
Condividi le tue foto dei luoghi: restano pubblicate con la tua firma come autore. Più vengono viste, più ti fai conoscere — e presto un concorso premierà le foto più apprezzate.
Accedi o registrati gratis per aggiungere una foto