The Wing Luke Museum takes flight

Perhaps the most moving thing about the rebirth of the Wing Luke Asian Museum is that it has at last acquired a permanent home. Up until now — ever since the museum began operating in the middle of the Chinatown/International District in 1967 — it had been a nomad, getting by leasing spaces nearby (including an old garage for the past 20 years). U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, on hand for last weekend’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, eloquently pointed out the symbolic dimension of this settling down: It’s an affirmation of the need to chronicle and preserve the immigrant cultural heritage which is at the root of American identity and experience.

The new Wing Luke represents a dramatic expansion of scope, which has been widely heralded by the media in the drum rolls leading up to the grand opening. The East Kong Yick Building on South King that is now the museum’s home affords eight times more space than its previous quarters (a half block away on S. Jackson), and administrators project a fourfold increase in visitors per year. An impressive fund-raising campaign secured the $23.2 million budget needed for the intricate transformation of what had been a plaintive ruin of a building dating from 1910 into a unique blend of old and new.

"We are a living museum," explains executor director Beth Takekawa, using the catch phrase that homes in on the core of Wing Luke’s special mission. The artifacts and objects it houses are means rather than ends, intended to encourage an ongoing dialog with the past as "living representations of history." The museum plans to display multiple points of view from the pan-Asian community — or, to use its own terminology, "Asian Pacific Islander Americans (APIAs)" — that come from inside their experience rather than the "objective" judgments of expert curators. Moreover, the Wing Luke incorporates spaces meant to be used by the community, including a reception hall, a library (named for former Gov. Gary Locke), exhibit areas for younger artists, and an intimate 59-seat theater. The museum is especially proud of the historic curtain from the early 1900s that is decked out with painted ads from the era. Originally it had been used for the Japanese Nippon Kan theater in the neighborhood, a place where variety shows shared the stage with visiting artists from Japan. Plans are for Wing Luke’s theater to host new shows such as a work-in-progress by local performance artist Nancy Calos-Nakano.

It will also address contemporary issues, such as voter registration vis-à-vis an exhibit about Asian-American participation in the election process. The topic is especially appropriate, not only given the stakes this November but because the museum’s namesake became the first Asian American elected to public office in the Pacific Northwest (as a member of the Seattle City Council). Two years after his tragic death in 1965 in a plane crash (at the age of 40), Wing Luke’s legacy was commemorated by the founding of the museum he had envisioned (now an affiliate of the Smithsonian).

Takekawa points to the unique nature of the venue itself. "We use both historic and contemporary spaces. The building also has a story and is part of our community legacy. We made a deliberate decision to stay here. It’s an unconventional location for a museum — an urban setting in the heart of a low-income community."

Indeed, the additional square footage acquired by the revitalized Wing Luke is hardly the main story. One of the opening exhibits pays tribute to the formal grace of George Tsutakawa’s fountains, for example. But along with such expected displays of artistic accomplishment, the Wing Luke has its eyes on other horizons. Much of what makes the new quarters so intriguing is their "meta-museum" quality, whereby there is a continually rethinking of assumptions about what a museum should be, in tandem with the issues of Asian-American identity that are addressed.

The four-story East Hong Yick Building began life nearly a century ago as a hotel and boarding house for legions of newly arrived immigrants. It was their first anchor as they began to remake their lives in a foreign land, a base where they established ties with fellow newcomers. And already it was a multicultural meeting point, bringing together not only Chinese immigrants but Japanese brides and Filipino "Alaskeros" who were heading up to work in Alaska’s salmon canneries.

Seattle architect Rick Sundberg of Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen, who used input from the local community, has referred to New York’s Lower East Side Tenement Museum as an inspiring model, but his blend of bright shiny new spaces with moody, weathered historical elements is an extraordinary local masterpiece of renovation. Instead of simply gutting and building up from scratch, the composite respects — and embodies — the original aura of a site saturated with memories.