Here looking northeast over Freedom Way, aka Republican Street, this eccentric home's full name was more revealing: the Century 21 Plywood Home of Living Light. It sat on a Center site that has been variously used during the now 40-plus years of Bumbershoot, most often for one of the festival's smaller stages. Sometimes this lawn immediately south of the Exhibition Hall and contiguous to one of the fairs food fairs was free for sprawled eating serenaded by buskers and jamers. Jean's Bumbershoot 2012 repeat reveals an unusually quiet setting on this lawn directly south of the Exhibition Hall. At some point - not remembered here - the covered promenade on Third Avenue (running north-south between the International Fountain and the west end of the Memorial Stadium) was extended thru the site where once shown "living light."
A better photograph of this plywood construction that suggests that it warrants the name is printed on page 247 of The Future Remembered, historylink and the Seattle Center Foundation’s well-wrought book on both Century 21 and Seattle. For its caption the book’s authors, Paula Becker and Alan J. Stein, explain the intentions of this manipulatable construction – and its name too. “In response to projected overpopulation in the future, the Home of Living Light was designed to provide private refuge on small, scarce building lots. Walls of wood paneling, rigid in one direction and flexible in the other, could take any shape while supporting the required roof loads. Four conical skylights located over each major area of the house and could be turned toward or away from the sun to adjust the level of natural lighting.” Hence Living Light!
Although soft on focus this Kodachrome loom east on Freedom Way (Republican Street) from Boulevard West (Second Ave.) puts the Home of Living Light at home, one block east at Boulevard East (Third Ave.) Also showing is the roof-line stage architecture of both the Playhouse, far left, and the Opera House, at the center,
This leaves only the hide-and-seek securer – Ron Edge’s map sandwich – for the reader to peg the Century 21 location for the Plywood Home of Living Light. HINT: Look for the smugged “60” that reads more like “80.”
