Hey Seattle — Alina here again. A few weeks ago we caught word that First Hill’s Museum of Museums was introducing a Cat Tower exhibit with its season opening, but there was a twist. Cats are welcome — yes, yours too.

So, of course, I scooped up my own kitty and ran down there.

About the exhibit 🐾

Er...Mama Bird (my cat) needed a break from all of the new smells. | Photo by SEAtoday Staff

You ever notice how the cat towers in pet stores are always those ugly, brown, carpeted things? Yeah, so did Museum of Museums director Greg Lundgren after he got his own kitten a couple of years ago.

“There’s a lot of things we spend time redesigning — like the chair,” Lundgren said. “But the cat tower is one of the things I think has slipped through the cracks.”

To address the lack of interesting cat furniture, Lundgren challenged local designers and groups like Seattle Design Nerds and SHED Architecture + Design to see what they could build. His direction was to come up with something both aesthetically pleasing and engaging for cats — and what better way to test them out than with real pets.

Feline critics 🐾

On Wednesdays and Sundays, locals can bring their feline friends to the museum (which means other days are pet-free), while also voting for the design they or their cat like the best.

At the end of the exhibition on Sun., May 1, the artist responsible for the tower with the most votes will win $5,000 to donate to the animal or human shelter of their choice. Then — the museum will host a silent auction for the actual towers themselves.

Purr-worthy hangouts 🐾

There are 12 tower designs that take up the museum’s Malone Gallery with themes ranging from serious aesthetic intentions to playfully stereotypical (a piece titled "Most Important Zoom Call of Your Life" is just a laptop on a desk).

For nervous babies (like mine — see above photo), the Museum of Museums also has a chill-out room equipped with catnip tucked away from some of the noise.