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Seattle's Olympic Sculpture Park: Living Sculpture / Sculptural Infrastructure
Seattle has a history of reluctance to accept innovative design projects, grudgingly receiving Gas Works Park in the 70’s, then Frank Gehry’s EMP building and the new Central Library designed by Rem Koolhaas. Now, however, Seattleites are welcoming with open arms the Olympic Sculpture Park, which officially opened on January 20. Designed by the New York firm Weiss/Manfredi Architects, the sculpture park is the Seattle Art Museum’s public showcase for its sculpture collection and a new public open space for the city.
Located on a former industrial site, the Olympic Sculpture Park bridges a major urban arterial and an existing rail line, to connect three parcels and link the city to the waterfront. The park’s design manages to offer a sense of continuous ground without sacrificing the experience of the automobile and rail movement through the site.
It remains to be seen how the park and its sculpture collection will wear and the extent to which their pristine condition will be maintained. Grounds are open to the public long hours daily, and controversy is already arising over differing views on whether and how to prevent touching the artwork and park vandalism. I’m curious to see whether areas like the perfect grid of the quaking aspen grove will be allowed to be colonized with root sprouts or take on a more diverse species composition.
The entire project explores notions of nature in an urban context to varying degrees of success. Much of the park’s vegetation is native to the region and in maturity will likely soften and contrast the geometry of the landforms. But the most exciting collision of worlds is Mark Dion’s Vivarium, an asymmetrical, angular greenhouse structure built around a massive nurse log and the vegetation it hosts. This artificial stage set for the complex cycle of birth and decay is exactly what fueled my magnetic attraction to terrariums, ant farms and backyard fishing ponds as a kid.
- Sarah Van Sanden