Boeing Field, officially King County International Airport (BFI), is located about 4 miles south of downtown Seattle and is one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country.
A lot of avgeeks head to this airport for planespotting and there’s a dedicated outdoor viewing area on the north side of the terminal.
But today we want to share some photos of the aviation-themed artwork that is both in and outside of the terminal building.
The images and the descriptions come to us courtesy of Seattle’s 4Culture, which funds a wide range of cultural projects in King County. When Boeing Field’s circa-1928 Air Terminal Building was being refurbished and renovated for a 2003 reopening, 4Culture commissioned a collection of site-specific art for the terminal that celebrates aviation.
30,000 Feet – by Brad Miller
30,000 one-foot wooden rulers flank the entry to the airport’s terminal building. They are arranged into two enormous arrows that point toward the ceiling and a pair of illuminated photographs.
One is a picture of clouds in a royal blue sky and is the view passengers often see when they’re flying at 30.000 feet in a commercial airplane.
The other photo is smaller and suspended below the first photo. This photo depicts a lush, dark evergreen forest that a passenger flying in a small aircraft at 2,000 feet might see.
Luminaries by Norman Courtney
Bejeweled like 1930s pendants, these functional artworks by Norman Courtney reference Art Deco design elements and the history of the terminal building. They also conjure that era’s space-age imagery.
Our Place in Space – by Paul Marioni and Ann Troutner
The terrazzo floor inside the terminal building depicts the connection between the earth, the moon, and the cosmos.
The building’s front doors open to a series of land and sea forms that represent North America. From there, a dark blue expanse sparkles with embedded glass, suggesting deep space—vast, fragile, and flecked with countless stars and other astronomical objects.
On the other side of the room, an image of the moon evokes cycles of waxing and waning, light and dark. When people walk from the entryway to the ticket counter they are walking to the moon.
Metropolis Fence – Peter Reiquam
A fictional skyline with thunderclouds, searchlights, and a vintage Boeing 307 stretches across the steel fence by Peter Reiquam that links the main terminal building with the administrative building at King County International Airport.
All art photos courtesy of 4Culture.
