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Olson Kundig Architects

  • PROJECT ROLES
  • Jim Olson, Principal / Owner
  • Tom Kundig, Principal / Owner
  • Rick Sundberg, Principal / Owner
  • Kirsten Murray, Principal / Owner
  • Alan Maskin, Principal / Owner
  • LOCATION & YEAR
  • Seattle, WA, 2010

Project Details

Jim Olson, Tom Kundig, Rick Sundberg, Kirsten Murray and Alan Maskin are excited to announce that Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects has changed its name to Olson Kundig Architects. The firm’s vision is marked by the rich and varied personalities of its five owners and continues to reflect the principles of its founding in the late 1960s.

Rick Sundberg, who remains as an owner and principal, continues to be active with architectural projects within the firm; he is also in the planning stages for the creation of a new philanthropic organization focused on architecture. Alan Maskin and Kirsten Murray became principals/owners in 2008 and Scott Allen left the firm in 2009 to create Scott Allen Architecture. With all these changes, the owners decided to simplify the name of the firm to Olson Kundig Architects.

About Olson Kundig Architects

Led by five owners, Olson Kundig Architects is an architecture studio based in Seattle, which received the 2009 AIA Architecture Firm Award by the American Institute of Architects (as Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects). With a staff of more than 75, the office combines the capacity of a large firm with the intensity of a small one, and its commitment to vigorous, critical design review sessions has infused its designers with a shared sense of commitment to every project and an appreciation of the technical and artistic elements involved in the realization of a building. The studio specializes in a range of projects both nationally and internationally including mixed-use buildings and complexes; academic and civic projects; museums and cultural spaces; exhibit design; places of worship; single use residential projects, often for art collectors; and interior design.

Founding partner Jim Olson began working in the late1960s on projects that would explore the relationship between dwellings and the landscape they inhabit. Rick Sundberg joined Olson as partner in 1975 for a period of years that was marked by an increased commitment to urbanism and civic work with major projects in the Northwest. Such projects included the award-winning Pike & Virginia Building, the first contemporary structure to be built in Seattle’s Pike Place Market Historic District in 50 years. In1997, Tom Kundig joined Olson and Sundberg as an owner, bringing a new level of creative exploration, building the international reputation of the office, including Kundig’s receipt of the National Design Award from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt in 2008. Alan Maskin and Kirsten R. Murray became partners in 2008, continuing the evolution of the firm and furthering its commitment to the craft of architecture through expanded work in exhibition design, interiors, and connections to urban and rural landscapes.