"9 Spaces 9 Trees"

Seattle, Washington, United States

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9 Spaces 9 Trees is an outdoor installation by Robert Irwin on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, between Odegaard Library and the Henry Art Gallery. Irwin first made it in 1983 for the rooftop plaza of the City of Seattle's Public Safety Building, and re-conceived it for the campus after a redesign of that site required its removal. A maze-like layout of fencing defines nine spaces, with nine trees. ArtsWA records it as 20 ft x 54 ft x 54 ft in concrete, steel, aluminum, wood and trees.

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"9 Spaces 9 Trees"

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Site-level location · 47.6565° N, 122.3111° W

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The story

ArtsWA says Robert Irwin described his work as "conditional," leaving space for the environment to alter the experience of the art. 9 Spaces 9 Trees was made for one site and had to be rebuilt for another.

Irwin first made it in 1983 for the rooftop plaza of Seattle's Public Safety Building. ArtsWA, which holds it in the Washington State Art Collection, says construction and a site redesign required its permanent removal, and Irwin re-conceived it for the university. ArtsWA's page gives 2003 for that re-creation in its text but 2007 in its title, and a 2006 university article describes work then under way on the campus site.

ArtsWA locates the work between Odegaard Library and the Henry Art Gallery. Fence walls laid out as a maze define nine gathering spaces, with nine trees, and light passing through the walls makes shifting patterns. Depending on the angle, ArtsWA says, the walls look transparent or fairly solid, and the spaces can feel both private and public. The trees are leafy in spring and summer and bare in fall and winter. ArtsWA lists the materials as concrete, vinyl-coated steel, weathering steel, aluminum, Ipe wood and Winterking hawthorn trees, and the size as 20 ft x 54 ft x 54 ft.

The university's 2006 article, written while the move was being planned, says the downtown original used flowering plums in planters that doubled as seating, and a wire-mesh fence coated in blue vinyl that deteriorated. The 2006 article says the nine trees were placed symmetrically. The campus version was to use hawthorns and a purple fence, which the university's campus art administrator, Kurt Kiefer, said Irwin chose to complement the hawthorns' orange berries. Kiefer called it "a concept, not an object" that was being saved.

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