Freeway Park in Seattle

The rectilinear forms follow through all parts of the Freeway Park in Seattle; the pathways, water features, planter boxes are all made of concrete.

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Seattle is a city full of contrasts. Situated on steep hills, Seattle overlooks the crystal waves of the Puget Sound, and wherever you look, stunning snowcapped mountains fill the horizon. Several lakes weave into the scenery, creating a rich tapestry with the lush, majestic forests of this evergreen, rainy part of the world. In this magnificent setting, the city centre is something of a visual shock: a high rise jungle of asphalt and concrete, with a train track and two major freeways, I-5 and the Alaskan Viaduct, cutting through it. There is very little greenery, only minor plantings dwarfed by the high buildings, and a few street trees struggling to keep alive in the harsh environment. With few exceptions, the best way to catch a glimpse of the city, the residential areas, the mountains and the sea is to drive through Seattle on one of the freeways. It feels like the early Seattleites, eager to tap into the natural riches of the area, forgot everything about the principles of good town planning when they started carving their mark into the landscape a bit over hundred years ago.

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Above: Part of the path around the park. Below: The park seen from the University Street ramp leading to the I-5 freeway.

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Freeway Park, situated in the heart of Seattle city centre, was designed in the early 70s to reduce the impact of the the I-5 freeway and to reconnect the city centre with First Hill, an older area on the east side of it. Landscape architect Laurence Halprin, who designed the park with Angela Danadjieva, wanted to integrate the I-5 freeway into the park and to emphasize the highly urban nature of the site. A result of their creative work, Freeway Park is a rectilinear board-formed concrete maze that sits like a monumental lock over the freeway. The passing cars below make a constant, obtrusive element of the park. To mute the sounds of the traffic, Halprin and Danadjieva included several fountains, many of which are now defunct. The largest one, the American League Fountain, is a huge, concrete canyon on several levels that was inspired by the waterfalls of the Cascade and Olympic mountains that surround Seattle. The vegetation is planted in large, concrete containers and consist mainly of native evergreens and shrubs, chosen because of their ability to survive high levels of pollution. Only a few flowering cherries and Magnolias add a seasonal, softer note to the otherwise quite static greenery.

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The American League Fountain was designed like a huge canyon and Halprin wanted the immediate sense of danger to make people cautious; therefore, no fences were used. At least two people have died by falling from the concrete platforms and steps of the park, so the renovation project will address the need for increased safety.

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The Freeway Park opened in 1976 as part of Seattle's celebrations of the U.S. bicentennial and was an immediate success that attracted large crowds. Later on, its maze-like design turned out to be a magnet for the criminal elements of the city: all the turns and nooks, designed to inspire intimate meetings between law-abiding citizens, showed to be a perfect place for robbers and murderers to hide and attack their offers without being noticed. The zigzagging design made it difficult for the victims to escape and the cascading fountains together with the neverending roar of traffic drowned effectively their cries for help.

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Emergency call buttons can be found in several places. They remind vividly of the many murders and robberies that have taken place in the park, adding a disconcerting feel to a visit there.

The Freeway Park, celebrated as a breakthrough in urban design in the 1970s, fell fast into disrepair. Later on, it was often referred to as one of the most unused or even hated parks in Seattle. First in 2006, The Cultural Landscape Foundation profiled the Freeway Park in its Landslide program for endangered cultural landscapes. This prompted Seattle Parks and Recreation Department to start a project for making it safer and more usable together with the people living nearby the park. When I visited the park yesterday, no results were visible, only several yellow signs and a large project presentation plan announced that repair works were on the way. Walking through the concrete paths in the rain, with the defeaning noise filling my ears, I had a slightly creepy feeling thinking of all the unlucky incidents that had taken place there. The Freeway Park felt like a place that was born out of idealism, but fallen deep into the raw reality of life. Still, with all the work that is going into reviving this people's meeting place, I hope that the Freeway Park will again be the urban oasis to "encourage meditative thought, excite senses and celebrate life" that Lawrence Halprin and Angela Danadjieva envisioned it to be.

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Later update (Feb 22, 2010): The Cultural Landscape Foundation just published an interview with Lawrence Halprin on their Oral History Project part of their website.