Artist was trolling for icon status when he created Fremont Troll
It didn't surprise Steve Badanes that the two-ton concrete bust he envisioned in 1990 — what some might consider the rather ugly Fremont Troll — came in No. 2 in a popularity contest with Times readers.
While some unique structures grow into the role of cultural icon — the Pike Place Market, for example, was for decades but a humble venue for truck farmers before becoming "the heart of the city" — the Fremont Troll was meant to become an icon from its inception.
Situated under the northern end of the Aurora Bridge, it's essentially a massive concrete head and upper chest emerging from a dank plot of dirt, one eye a hubcap, the left hand clutching a real VW Bug. Japanese visitors pose atop it, MTV recently made a rock video there, and Badanes has received at least one Christmas card picturing revelers in Santa hats posing all over it.
"You could call it the poor man's Space Needle," said Badanes, 60, an architecture professor at the University of Washington.
Even from the start, as it competed with other finalists in a competition held by the Fremont Arts Council to design a sculpture for the bridge, the troll was an overwhelming public favorite.
"The problem under the bridge was that there were rodents, mattresses, beer cans, guys sleeping there," Badanes said. "They thought the problem could possibly be solved by having a piece of art."
When Badanes heard about the competition, he went to the site to conjure up a vision. "That old story of the troll under the bridge came leaping at me," he said. Badanes and his partners — Will Martin and Ross Whitehead, architecture students at the time, and his then-girlfriend Donna Walter — specifically set out to create an icon, even going so far as to copyright the troll's image (MTV recently paid $500, according to Badanes, who figures, why shouldn't artists be compensated for their work?
Some 40 to 50 entries were whittled down to four, with models displayed in the neighborhood. With some 1,300 votes cast, the troll won by either a three-to-one or two-to-one margin, depending on who is remembering.
Barbara Luecke, then an arts-council staffer, remembered her reaction. "I was sort of shocked ... a troll under a bridge is almost like a joke." Now, though, "I love the troll. I'm one of its biggest supporters."
Construction took about three months. The inside of the VW became a time capsule, Badanes said, though "not much of value was in there, a bust of Elvis, some ashes of somebody who had died who was close to us, stuff people brought, like drawings." But after the Bug was broken into and the Elvis bust stolen, it was filled first with sand and then with concrete.
Vandalism remains a problem even now — Badanes sometimes must scrub off graffiti or repair damage caused when loose chunks of concrete get thrown at the troll. He's hoping to train someone else to maintain it, because he doesn't expect its popularity to wane.
"It's pretty amazing how it catches everybody's imagination — especially if you're a kid," he said.
A kid in age, or at least at heart.
Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com