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It was a laughable proposition 20 ago transform one of the most polluted industrial areas in the state of Washington into a cultural bastion. And do it somewhere other than Seattle. r Seems it wasn't so laughable after all. r A major step in the revitalization of the downtown waterfront area of Tacoma the Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art opens its doors to the public Saturday. It is one of the first of many new museum and tourist attractions that will transform the Thea Foss Waterway (once so laden with toxins it was listed as Superfund site) into what Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma calls the perfect display of the "art of Northwest living." r With a 90-foot metal cone rising at an angle from layers of concrete, steel and ironically, a minimal use of glass the $48 million museum is punctuated with large concrete plazas overlooking the waterway. Water pools and several public art displays are located at each level, connected outdoors with a series of stairways and switchback ramps. r Many who watched the almost decade-long push to have a museum devoted to glass built in Tacoma assumed that it would be nicknamed the "house that Dale built."
That's in reference to Tacoma native son Dale Chihuly, a world- renowned glass artist and pioneer of the Studio Glass Movement, who was one of the most vocal advocates of the concept.
"It was a dream from the beginning to have a museum on the waterfront," Chihuly said. "It started out to be a small museum."
The assumption was the museum would be a showcase for Chihuly. But the glass artist began to focus on another idea connected to the museum a pedestrian bridge spanning the railroad tracks and freeway that separate downtown Tacoma from the waterfront.
That 500-foot bridge, which will be open to the public 24 hours a day, connects with the museum and has been named the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.
As visitors cross the concrete expanse, they'll see the Venetian Wall, with more than 100 of his unique sculptures in a window-box display lit by fiber-optic light; the Seaform Pavilion, a room with a glass ceiling made of hundreds of Chihuly's signature seaform glass art in the shapes...