Fred Bassetti an artist and famous architect resided here in Washington from 1997-2013, and died at the age of 96. He was a driven individual, who first received his bachelor’s degree from University of Washington in 1942; right after the Pearl Harbor bombing, he decided to do his part in serving for his country and worked with the U.S government on designing housing for workers who were helping build the planes and ships for the war effort. After WWII, he decided to continue to further his education and attended school at Harvard University. He had the wonderful opportunity to work with one of the greatest architects from Finland, Alvar Aalto. On the side, he competed in small competitions and won a Seattle Times-sponsored contest to design a small house in 1946. After this his career took off and he began working with his friend John N. Morse on a number of projects across not only the PNW. He was a designer of nine beautiful buildings on the WWU campus throughout the 1960s. The Alphabeta Cube was one of his few public pieces of sculpture that he had done.
The Alphabeta Cube was built in, 1972 as part of the Wilson Library project going on at the time, just a little while after the first installation of the Outdoor Sculpture Collection in 1960. It was built for the library, as one can tell by looking inside the piece and identifying the truncated cube with letters and symbols, ultimately celebrating the alphabet. The Alphabeta Cube is an eight-foot-tall sculpture which was placed between Haggard Hall and the library, but moved during construction down to Fairhaven College and has stayed there ever since. Although Fred Bassetti would have loved for it to be moved back to its original place now that the construction is over, the piece stands beautifully by the central area of the community pond along a path allowing for great interaction. The Alphabeta Cube made up of old growth redwood, stands on one of its corners, within hangs a bronze truncated cube ball hanging from a chain. Interestingly enough, after completing the Alphabeta cube, Fred Bassetti admits that he regrets his choice in using redwood. Prior and during this time, logging was a prevalent form of income in the Pacific Northwest area; with the breakthrough of steam power, it only increased the widespread of logging. Perhaps the popularity of logging created a dissatisfaction of the material chosen for the piece in Bassetti’s eyes. The cube allows for lots of light to come in and allow viewers to clearly see at eye level, the truncated cube with 38 facets covered in the letters of the alphabet, one of ten digits, and symbols for pi and infinity on each facet. The piece is very interactive requiring the viewer to walk to different corners to peak through and see different sides of the bronze ball. Fred Bassetti doesn’t mind that much that students etch things into to the wood because he sees it as “being used.” There is also an advertisement he incised with a steel dye that he made for National Library Week.
During this time (1972) much change was occurring with Western Washington University. In fact, in 1899 when the university was originally forming, it was a college for students involve with education only. By 1973, Art and Science had been established at Western Washington University (named Western Washington college of Education, until 1977) which today makes up for over 60% of today’s graduates; and also, was right around the time Bassetti was working on the Alphabeta cube project. Art in the 1970’s also took a much different approach, leaning more towards “environmental art” otherwise known as Earth art or land art, including artist such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Land art or Earth art is an art movement in which the landscape and work of art are linked together. It’s also a type of artwork that is used entirely of natural materials such as soil, rock, organic material, and water, with introduced materials such as concrete, metal, or asphalt. Although the Alphabeta cube doesn’t quite fit in the Earth art/land art category, the piece definitely holds some similar characteristics to the art style especially considering the naturalistic materials used to create the piece.
Credits
Photos
Jordan Weeks & Nicole Roze
Research
Jordan Weeks & Nicole Roze
Time-lapse
Jordan Weeks
Edits
Jordan Weeks & Nicole Roze
Music
Epic Cinematic by Brain Craft Ltd
Epic Film by Brain Craft Ltd
References
American Art: History of Fine Arts in America. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2017, from
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/history-of-art/american-art.htm
Anderson, M. (2013, December 6). Fred Bassetti designed much of Western’s campus. Western Today. Retrieved from https://westerntoday.wwu.edu
Brief History of Western Washington University. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2017, from
https://library.wwu.edu/hr/specialcollections/sc_chronology
Brunner, J. (2013, December 5). Architect Fred Bassetti dies; he leaves indelible mark on Seattle. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com
Connelly, J. (2013, December 6). Fred Bassetti, architect and shaper of Seattle: An appreciation. Seattle Pi. Retrieved from http://www.seattlepi.com
Fairhaven History. (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2017, from
http://www.fairhavenhistory.com/content/hippie_years_60s_and_70s/hippie_years_60s_and_70s.asp
History.com Staff. (2010). The 1970’s. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from
http://history.com/topics/1970’s
Inge, S. (2003, April 30). Fred Bassetti, FAIA. Special Collections Oral History Program. Retrieved from https://library.wwu.edu
Lieb, Emily. (2006). History Link. Bellingham – Thumbnail History. Retrieved January 27,
2017, from http://www.historylink.org/File/7904
W. (2015, October 27). Wwuheritageresources. Retrieved February 08, 2017, from
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