Wikipedia contains a good background on the history of this building and it reads:
The Federal Office Building, Seattle, Washington is a historic federal office building and courthouse located at Seattle in King County, Washington. It was the courthouse for the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington until construction of Seattle's newer courthouse in 2004.
Building history
According to local tradition, the Federal Office Building in Seattle is located on the site where city founders A.A. Denny, William Bell, and C.D. Boren docked their boat after making initial surveys of Puget Sound and its harbors in 1851. On June 6, 1889, the Great Seattle fire, which destroyed more than 64 acres (260,000 m2) of the commercial district, started in a cabinet shop at the site of the Federal Office Building.
Seattle rebuilt after the fire, and in 1897 its port became the "Gateway to Alaska" for steamships bearing prospectors bound for Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush. The city's population burgeoned, and the federal government decided to consolidate the location of its services. In 1928, Congress approved more than $2 million for site acquisition and construction. Officials selected a site bounded by Madison and Marion streets and First and Western avenues. The building was designed between 1930 and 1931 by the Office of the Supervising Architect under James A. Wetmore. One of the earliest federal buildings in the Art Deco style of architecture, the building's design was a departure from the more traditional styles of Classical Revival and Beaux Arts Classicism and a step toward more modern architectural styles that were gaining popularity. However, the building retains conventional symmetrical massing and proportion.
Construction was completed in 1933 by the Murch Construction Company of St. Louis, Missouri. The building used substantial amounts of aluminum from smelters along the nearby Columbia River. It was the first building in Seattle designed specifically to house offices for the federal government. Among its first tenants were 52 federal agencies, the largest of which was the Department of the Treasury.
Today, the building is located among three significant historic areas: Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, and the waterfront. The Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, located across the street, was constructed from 1975 to 1976. In 1979, the Federal Office Building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Architecture
The Federal Office Building is an exuberant example of Art Deco architecture. One of the earliest Modern styles, Art Deco architecture emphasizes verticality and is heavily ornamented with stylized, geometric motifs. The facade is stepped, with the outer portions rising from six stories to nine stories, while the central tower reaches eleven stories in height. The tower is topped by a ziggurat (stepped pyramid) with a flagpole at its apex. Corner towers rise slightly above the ridgeline.
The building is constructed of a steel frame encased in concrete for additional fire protection. The design is also notable for its use of aluminum, which was installed as cast spandrel panels between windows on the third through sixth floors. The panels, which depict either insignia of various federal agencies or decorative geometric designs, were one of the earliest substantial uses of aluminum on a West Coast building.
The building rests atop a granite foundation. Smooth terracotta, which lends the appearance of stone, covers the first story and is punctuated by segmental-arch openings on the facade. The midsection is clad in light red brick and is topped by elaborate stylized ornamentation executed in pale terra cotta.
On the facade, three centrally located entrances are articulated by vertical pale terra-cotta ornamentation that includes miniature ram and lion heads. A stylized eagle motif is centrally placed above the entrance, and bronze lanterns provide light. Two five-foot-tall, cast-bronze urns, which were relocated from the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, flank the entrance. They feature stylized geometric decorations.
Often, the rear elevations of buildings are less visible and therefore less ornamented, but because the rear of the Federal Office Building faces Western Avenue, an important thoroughfare, all elevations are extensively detailed. The building's cornerstone and two plaques commemorating the Great Seattle Fire of 1889 are located near where the fire began.
Interior public spaces are heavily ornamented with Art Deco materials and motifs. Access is gained through the First Avenue entrance into a vestibule with cast-bronze moldings and bronze-and-glass doors which lead to a public lobby and the post office. The public lobby floor is covered with dark red terra-cotta tile with cross strips and baseboards of Tokeen marble from Alaska. Walls are clad in light gray Wilkeson sandstone, and a coffered ceiling tops the space. Several original bronze, reverse-pyramid light fixtures remain in the lobby. A nearby elevator lobby has four elevators with original cast-bronze doors bearing floral Art Deco motifs.
At the north end of the vestibule is the U.S. Post Office, which is reached through an opening flanked by stained oak pilasters (attached columns). The postal lobby, which is nearly unchanged since building construction, is one of the most significant interior spaces. Two original postal service windows are cased in stained oak with simple scroll brackets and carved lintels. The floor is covered in polished, dark red, terra-cotta tile with a coved base molding. Stained oak, tongue-in-groove wainscot reaches a height of three feet around the perimeter of the postal lobby and is capped by a stained oak rail. Above the rail, plaster walls are finished in a heavily stippled texture. Plaster cove molding tops the walls and has a fruit-and-leaf design.
There are two plaques located at the NW corner of the building that note the site of the 'Great Seattle Fire of 1889.'
The National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form contains a statement of significance for which parts of it highlight this building and read:
The Federal Office Building is a landmark in Seattle's Central Business District. In addition to being the city's first building specially designed for Federal offices, the FOB was one of the first Modernistic-styled Federal buildings to be designed by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury. The brick facades with their art deco-era ornamentation are an integral part of many pedestrian walkways through the CBD. With the improvement of walkways linking nearby Historic Districts, the FOB will become an increasingly well known part of Seattle's architectural history.
The building lies in the center of one of the city's most historic areas. In the winter of 1851, city founder A. A. Denny, with William Bell and C. D. Boren in his canoe, sounded the entire shoreline of Elliott Bay in search of the bay's most appropriate docksite. Their task completed, they beached their craft on the ground now occupied by the FOB. A. A. Denny claimed the area that now includes the FOB site and surrounding neighborhood, building his cabin where the "New" FB stands today.
The site was then a bluff above the beach. The street between Denny's cabin and the bluff came to be called "Front Street" (which was later changed to the present First Avenue). Denny's cabin site, on the east side of First Avenue opposite the FOB, has been placed on the Washington State Register of Historic Places.
The city grew around the plat drawn up by Denny and Henry Yesler. A block away from Denny's cabin, Yesler founded a sawmill on the waterfront, at the foot of the log slide that came to be named "Skid Road." Wooden buildings lined the streets laid out by Denny and by the 1880's the future of the active lumber and trade community looked promising.
On June 6, 1889 a fire began in a cabinet shop on the corner of Front and Madison Street (the northeast corner of the FOB site). The conflagration spread to adjoining buildings and during the night burned through Seattle's entire business district. Over 64 acres of the town's new commercial district were destroyed. In 1974 the Start of the Seattle Fire Site was placed on the Washington State Register of Historic Places. Two plaques commemorating the event are located, along with the cornerstone, at the northeast corner of the FOB.
Following Chicago's example, Seattle's commercial district was rebuilt using less flammable brick, steel, and stone construction. The Pioneer Square area, a block south of the FOB site, became the heart of Seattle's new CBD.
On May 29, 1928, Congress approved funds for site acquisition and construction of a new facility to house scattered Federal agencies in Seattle. A total cost limit was placed at $2,175,000 (in 1930, before construction commenced, this limit was raised to $2,375,000).
The site, covering an entire city block just east of the waterfront, was purchased in March 1929. The western half of the site was purchased from the Exeter Company. Their two storey brick buildings lining Western Avenue (Lots 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Block 189 of Seattle Tidelands) sold for $287,868.40. The Eastern half of the site was purchased from the Noyes estate (Lots 1, 2, and 3 of Seattle Tidelands) for $287,868.40. The remaining southeast quarter of the site was purchased from the Richie Estate (the north half of lot 4) for $62,371.50, and the Campbell estate for $61,891.70. The four and six storey brick commercial buildings on the eastern half of the site had been part of the post-fire rebuilding effort. In preparation for construction, all buildings on the site were razed.
Post Street (now popularly called "Post Alley") ran north-south through the center of the site. The city government granted the petitions of Federal officials and the street was closed, thus leaving a complete city block for the new Federal building.
The site was ideally located within Seattle's newly reestablished business district. One block to the south was the Pioneer Square area, with its then 30-40 year-old commercial structures. At the southern end of the Pioneer Square district, less than a mile from the FOB site, were King Street Station and Union Station railroad depots. Both First and Western Avenues, connecting Pioneer Square with the Pike Market several blocks to the north of the FOB, had electric trolleys. The terminus of the Madison Street cablecar, which connected the downtown with Capitol Hill, was at the FOB site's northwest corner. One block to the West were the bustling wharfs of the Port of Seattle. The Colman Dock, at the foot of Marion Street (a block from the FOB), was Seattle's major ferry terminal. In the 1960's the terminal was torn down and the new Washington State Ferry Terminal built on the site. The Colman Dock site is now on the Washington State Register of Historic Places.
The FOB was designed during the winter of 1930 in the Office of the Supervising Architect, a branch of the Department of the Treasury. The 300,000 square foot brick and steel building was to be one of the Office's first Modernistic-styled buildings. Working plans were approved in June 1931 by the superintendents of the Structural, Drafting and Mechanical divisions of the office. The Supervising Architect directing design and construction was James A. Wetmore.
.........
Today the FOB remains a conspicuous downtown building. The FOB's modernistic principal facade is a distinctive part of the First Avenue streetscape. Art deco ornamentation, red brick piers, and the gradual stepping-back of the facade produce a readily identifiable element to First Avenue pedestrians going from Pike Market to Pioneer Square.
Other FOB facades are the termini of several pedestrian pathways linking the CBD with Seattle's downtown recreational and historic districts. A recently awarded Local Improvement District will make it possible to develop Post Street into a new pedestrian corridor linking Pike Market and Pioneer Square. The northern facade of the FOB would play a vital role in the project; the facade is the physical and visual terminus of Post Alley. Another Local Improvement District proposes to turn Alaskan Way along the waterfront into a tree-lined pedestrian promenade.
Because of its historic site in downtown Seattle and its Modernistic style, the FOB has become a prominent building in the CBD. The FOB lies in a triangle bordered by Seattle's major historic districts: Pioneer Square, Pike Market, and the Waterfront. As pedestrian routes linking these districts are developed, the Federal Office Building will become an increasingly important cultural and architectural landmark in Seattle.