Our world's fair never ended, and that's a good thing
Seattle Center is in trouble, but maybe we're trying to fix something that isn't broken.
The Space Needle may be Seattle's symbol, but it's always been an alien presence, a relic of a space age that never came to be. The Needle has achieved iconic status – our Eiffel Tower – but for decades serious architects and urban planners have viewed it as a kind of embarrassment. Did we really think we would live like that, in low-density towers, in flying saucers on stilts?
Just as we've outgrown the Space Needle, some argue we've also outgrown Seattle Center, location of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. It is the country's most well-preserved expo site. It is also a reminder of when a Northwest hick town decided to put on a big show, Mickey Rooney- and Judy Garland-style.
When world's fairs started occurring in burgs like Seattle instead of Chicago or New York, they became distinctly uncool – so uncool that the last U.S. fair was held in 1984. For some, Seattle Center is a little like that big-hair high school yearbook photo – evidence of a coming-of-age period that's best forgotten. Our Wi-Fied, skinny-towered, "world-class" city should offer worthier amenities, some say. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat made the anti-fair argument in a column last spring titled, "It's Time to Let Go of the Fair." What Seattle Center really needs, he wrote, is an appointment with a "jackhammer."
He may get his wish. The Sonics are almost certainly leaving KeyArena, the Fun Forest is having financial difficulties, and the on-again, off-again monorail shows signs of becoming an elevated white elephant. Memorial Stadium is an earthquake hazard, and Center House often resembles a homeless shelter.
At the same time, the surrounding neighborhoods are changing. South Queen Anne, Belltown and South Lake Union are all targeted by the city for massive, dense, high-rise growth. The multibillion-dollar Gates Foundation is building its headquarters across the street and will land a new phalanx of upscale office workers at the center's doorstep. This is exactly the type of urbanization the world's fair was meant to stimulate – it just took 45 years to arrive.
So, with changing environs and aging infrastructure, it's time for another rethink. Mayor Greg Nickels has appointed a Century 21 committee to go through the process of "visioning" a new future for the city's most important civic space outside the Pike Place Market. Studies say the center is responsible for more than 15,000 jobs and generates more than $1 billion in economic activity. The fountain, a meeting place in troubled times (such as post-9/11), is regarded by many as the spiritual center of the city.
The mayor's committee has been holding community meetings, inviting new designs and soliciting input, at least through this June. The stakes for keeping the center viable are significant, and whatever plan is settled on will likely lead to a new levy or bond issue for renovations and to help the center get on its financial feet.
A number of visions are already emerging. Civic dynamo David Brewster (disclosure: he's the founding publisher of Crosscut) has touted turning the campus into the equivalent of New York's Central Park by increasing the amount of open space. He'd like to tear down Center House and Memorial Stadium. Others would like to see the center integrated into the surrounding neighborhoods, which cater to the young and affluent, offering more upscale amenities like outdoor cafés. Some are even eying the center's Mercer Street garage as a site for new housing.
Changes, some of them major, need to be made. But while Seattle could benefit from a Central Park, it also needs a Coney Island. Yuppification, which would make some nearby residents happy, could jeopardize the center's commitment to populist entertainment like Bumbershoot. Those new condo dwellers on Mercer would likely be quick with noise complaints. The center should continue to be defined by its devotion to the broader public by offering attractions for high-, low- and middlebrow audiences.
The center is not a broken-down, boomer nostalgia trip. It draws 12 million visitors a year. That's more people than went to expos in Spokane, Okinawa, Knoxville, New Orleans, Genoa, or Lisbon. That's more people than attended the original Seattle World's Fair.
Seattle's legacy is not that we're clinging to the past, but that we're hosting America's only world's fair – the expo that never died. That may not be Koolhaas cool, but it's unique and it's ours and it can still work.
Topics:
History,
Mossback,
Neighborhoods and Communities,
Outdoors,
Seattle,
Seattle City Hall,
Washington,
Sports
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Comments:
Posted Sat, Apr 28, 12:33 p.m. Inappropriate
Soul of Seattle: Spot on about Seattle Center: "It's unique and it's ours and it can still work." The Center needs continuous upkeep and incremental improvement, but lets not get carried away with the "imagineering," to recall a past dead end.
Posted Sat, Apr 28, 2:34 p.m. Inappropriate
1. adj., brought back -- used postpositively
2. v., to lower the head or body suddenly a second time, "Public acrimony ducks to avoid the civic boosterism of the 1962 Fair, and then redux to avoid the transcendent wonder of the 2017 Seattle Word's Fair. "
My gut tells me that the public vehicle for redoing the Seattle Center is a new World's Fair. Seattle and the region will rally around a new World's Fair and improvements in Seattle Center infrastructure to host it. Emotionally, I'll take this any day of the week over the combination of a viaduct, a 520 bridge, a Renton Sonics stadium, and Sound Transit to the airport.
The New York City World's Fair New York City World's Fair set the gold standard for World's Fairs: FDR spoke to open it, TV was introduced publicly, Disneyland was inspired by Fair, and Robert Moses (the "power broker") used the Fair as a catalyst for the infrastructure changes he'd institute in NYC, for good and for bad, over the next 40yrs or so.
We could use the Fair as the organizing principle for building our roads. If we set the date for the Fair at 2017, then we'd have ten years to create the infrastructure to serve visitors to the Fair, and presumably at the same time anticipate all the density that is supposed to be coming into the City. We might even push to get a Nickelodeon Viaduct done ("the NickelDuct"), get Sound Transit (my least favorite transport project) or a New New Monorail to serve the Center in that time frame, plus push to get a new 520 through and done, along with Mercer Street and South Lake Union Work that would serve access to the Fair.
We'd get Microsoft and Boeing to announce Vista v4 and Dreamliner 707 at the Fair, with Boeing doing flyovers everyday. Certainly we'd hire the Blue Angels and have a World's Fair Hydroplane Race that Summer.
The ultimate goal for the Center would be to LEAVE it with a broad green open space park. But in the mean-time, the exhibition grounds would be leveled for short-term exhibits. Significant, major infrastructure would be created, all in an open public design process that would allow for the Center design to develop organically. Ultimately, you've gotta be Pareto optimal on most of what you do, so that we keep the good across many sorts of goods. So I don't think you want to eliminate he Fun Forest, for example, or the Stadium. Redo them. Improve them. Put in underground parking (I know, very expensive, but remember, Seattle's a DENSE City) or go the giant above-ground parking garage route. I think spending money to EXPAND the footprint of the Center makes a lot of sense, because a lot of the ideas expressed for adding to it are good, for example an amphitheatre and more open space. Channeling through zoning of private or public building of condos and restaurants and shops -- mixed use -- around the periphery would seem to make sense.
My point here is really that we have to THINK BIG if we want to make the sort of changes that we want to have happen. Incrementalism here is a losing game. The process and permitting overhead of doing small things makes them losers.
A World's Fair gives us a deadline. The Seattle Center gives us a focus. Overall, we've got a vision.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 9:50 a.m. Inappropriate
If we want to be true to the spirit of the Seattle Center, we look forward, not back.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 9:55 a.m. Inappropriate
World's Fairs are passe.
If you want a gimmick, then it should be something more permanent.
My idea? Seattle has a unique history. I suggest re-themeing SC as the Seattle World Cultural Center.
Start by moving the Burke! The Museum could make great use of exisiting buildings and would be a great magnet if it were in a grander space.
This could help clarify the functions of the Burke as well. Why do we have a museum that combines dinosaurs and Pac Rim cultures? Isn't this a racist subtlety assigning mdodern native peoples to extinction?
As part of this transformation, the Burke wolud become more like the Smithsonian, a collaboration fo museums. The first such would be a museum for NW indigenes ... dedicated to the Salish peoples.
Hopefully the SAM would chip in by putting a Branch in the center for its wonderful African and NW connections.
Other ethnic groups would be encouraged .. this would be a hel of a lot better place for the AA museum then the seedy old school now under reconstruction. Seattle wealthy Sephardic community, as one example, is discussing building a Sephardi culture center. Why not at the Seattle Center? How about a Buddhist Temple on site? A museum honoring the Scandahoovians is long overdue.
The best part is that this approach would take advantage of the wonderful ethnic festivals that we have weekly at the Center House. BUT, why not makle thes international ? Work with the visitor's bureau to attract ethnic festivals from around the world! Bumbershoot as well.
more at my Blog
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 10:25 a.m. Inappropriate
You don't say, let us manage change better so as many as possible, up and down the income scale, benefit. You want to stop change altogether. You don't seem to see the city as a livng organism that must evolve to survive. Rather, you see it as a fundamentally dead thing, a fly frozen in place in the hardened amber of your sappy youthful recollections. You see Seattle as a monument -- ultimately, really, a mausoleum -- dedicated to the remembrance of Skip's past.
You say that Seattle is not unduly fixated on its own history. That's true. But you are.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 11:58 a.m. Inappropriate
What I do think is unique about the Center is the fact that it is, in essence, a functioning world's fair--the only one in this county. (Also, contrary to popular belief, world's fairs are not relics of the past, except in the country. They are thriving around the world. There's was an excellent one in Japan in '05, one in Spain in '08, and a huge one planned for Shanghai in '10.) This quality is something I think worth recognizing and improving upon.
I see both good and bad changes in Seattle, and, naturally, that's driven by my taste and experience. I don't want to see Seattle preserved in amber, but I do worry about the loss of a more egalitarian city, a populist city, a city that was less in-love with itself, less-pretentious, and less enamored with big ambitions for their own sake. I also don't want to see our major public amenities tailored for people with money. A more park-like Center isn't necessarily that--Brewster would argue that that would be very populist--but I do think shaping it as an amenity for its increasinlgy yuppified surroundings is a real danger.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 2:25 p.m. Inappropriate
Whatever it's inevitable financial problems, Seattle Center is a great example of that. It works because it has grown in strange and unexpected ways, just the way things grow in nature. It needs occasional pruning. It always will, but it doesn't need an overhaul.
Consider something simple: The International Fountain. Disney's Imagineers hated that thing when they submitted their overhaul plan years ago. Folks stuck with the old one until it died of its own age and design flaws. It was replaced by something that worked better and was far safer for what people were using it for. People wanted to do more than just look at it. Kids wanted to climb on it, run around it, play tag with the streams of water. So they replaced the original with something that looks and works a lot like the old one, but is much safer for those activities that had developed around the dangerous old fountain.
The Center became Seattle's theater district in much the same way. Seattle Rep, Opera, and Ballet were put there as part of the grand World's Fair plan. But Intiman moved down only after the Rep abandoned its original space for a new building on the grounds. And Seattle Children's Theater found it a welcoming space for its new building.
Even though the NBA wasn't satisfied with it, the conversion of the Coliseum into Key Arena is another good example of organic growth. Now, though, its purpose needs to be changed again. OK. But follow the Center's own history and look for new uses before tearing it down.
Center House has never really worked all that well in any of its incarnations, so maybe it's finally time to tear it out by the roots despite its long history and interesting architectural details.
Seattle Center a great festival space. It's a good public space. It could be more. But it should become whatever it changes into through careful pruning and not the kind of lazy tear-out that too many inflict on such spaces.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 4:20 p.m. Inappropriate
Mossback wants to see us continue in our future-oriented ways without destroying what's good. In fact, incrementally improving what is good is the way this State moves forward. If you want to call him a reactionary because he reacts against destroying good institutions, then that's your prerogative. For the many who've moved into this area with good high-paying jobs, plenty of money, and the future laid out in front of them, Seattle's past may seem like a tree stump that needs to be dynamited. But the Seattle that newcomers love became that way for some very important reasons: a focus on civic good (fading now), a belief in technology (still very strong), a belief in a better future (still strong), a belief in the outdoors (hiking, camping, climbing), and a quiet, basic sense of liberal tolerance (more-or-less thriving). The Seattle Center represents everyone of those virtues. If Mossback's a reactionary in defense of those virtues, more power to him. To move "beyond" those virtues is obvious folly. To build on them guarantees success.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 5:35 p.m. Inappropriate
Go back and read your own stuff, man. You have very little good to say about present day Seattle and the people who have moved here in recent years. About why it is such a sought-after place to live. About the fact that it is an well-educated, articulate city that cares about knowledge and believes in civic engagement. About the fact that it has stayed true to a set of core communitarian-progressive values in spite of all the change over time. About its relative lack of racial tension, its low levels of crime and violence, about its high quality of life and its openness to change and to new faces (like mine; I moved here less than five years ago).
For you all those things seem to be part of the past, but I see them all around me still. Which is why I can't come close to reconciling your portrait of the city with reality. It's like the fantasyland version of a progressing Iraq we get from George Bush; I just don't see it.
No, your stuff is the opposite: it's one long declension narrative about what you see as the end of the city's innocence. It is about Seattle's supposed long, dark fall from grace which, not coincidentally, seems to coincide a bit too perfectly with the falling away of your youth.
This great falling away from virtue and innocence began, if I take you correctly, sometime between 1962 and Bobby Kennedy's assassination (or perhaps Watergate, the date is a little vague) and has proceeded relentlessly ever since. First we built skyscrapers downtown, then -- God forgive us for our presumption and ambition -- we bit from the apple of high tech knowledge. The egalitarian Jet City of Boeing assembly line workers gemütlich in their single-family bungalows has been savagely erased bit by bit ever since, its small town charms and simple, salt-of-the-earth pieties no match for the greed of unscrupulous developers catering to the cotton candy cultural whims and urbanist faddism of shallow BoBo incomers from the East.
So, what precious little is left of the world we are losing must be saved at all costs lest the city complete its descent into a glorified theme park for overcompensated group program managers who got in while the stock options were still good. It won't be easy, but Skip Berger is there to lead the charge. Who will join him in manning the barricades? Who else will stand athwart Seattle's ugly latter day history of economic success and cultural vitality, yelling "Stop!"? David Brewster? Steve Scher? The editorial braintrust at Seattle Magazine? Um, well, doesn't matter. If no one else actually agrees, all the better. Meet Skip Berger, Seattle's Cassandra of the Consumerist Glossies, who dared to tell the yuppies what they already knew: that they are lucky to have what they have.
In short, what a load. Yes, there have been great changes in Seattle. But the Old Seattlites I know don't seem all that virtuous and the new ones don't seem all that shallow. And we remain a lot more like "Mayberry with highrises," to adopt Judy Nicastro's inspired formulation, than we do like the Babylons of the Eastern seaboard. We're nothing like Manhattan. Or Los Angeles. Besides, the true alternative to the Seattle of today is not the Seattle of your youth. It is Cleveland, or Detroit, or Baltimore. The alternative to a present-day American city on the rise is a present-day city in decliine. You want an authentic declension narrative? Visit Cleveland (I moved from there). Tell you what: I'll ride the Booster with you and David, if you admit that for all its flaws and problems, Seattle is really a great place to live, and will be even with skinny towers, more apartments and -- don't throw up -- an outdoor café or two.
Posted Sun, Apr 29, 7:15 p.m. Inappropriate
You seem to be framing this whole discussion in partisan terms, as if I want to lead a political movement. Understandable for a former political reporter who has turned into a political flack for Ron Sims and other causes: you might tend to see things that way, but really, I think you're wrestling with a homunculus of your own making. I suppose, though, I should take the Cassandra reference as flattering. If you remember, Cassandra was correct, though fated not to be believed.
You make a good point in reminding me that others, especially newcomers to town, see Seattle as wonderful. Today, I took a cousin and his companion from New York up to Snoqualmie. We stopped to look at the carcass of a giant fir that is on display and my cousin's friend marveled. If this were in New York, he said, someone would have set it on fire just to watch it burn, or it would have been covered in graffiti. Did I ever give you the impression that I don't love it here? That my motives aren't rooted in love of place? You'd know that if you've read my work over the last 25 years. You'd also know that I don't view the past through a misty haze.
I'm a columnist and a critic, not a candidate or a politician. I have no platform other than my opinions. I see things that worry me. It's my job to say so. I also know that if it weren't for grassroots cranks--people far more civically passionate and dedicated than I am--Seattle wouldn't have a Pike Place Market, a Pioneer Square, or an Arboretum with only one freeway running through it. For almost every great civic accomplishment Seattle has realized by doing something, there is another that resulted from *not* doing something. But you can't see that without some sense of history. There is nothing inevitable about the city you have adopted and like so much.
Posted Mon, Apr 30, 9:35 a.m. Inappropriate
I too grew up in the golden era of Seattle, and lament the current city- so much so that I have not lived in it since 1984. But I do travel all over the world, and my thoughts about Seattle these days are more colored by that than the rose colored glasses of nostalgia.
Pat O Day was actually a drunk. But I still miss the old KJR.
The problem with the Center is that it has been run as an independent fiefdom, a city state all its own within the city. There has never been any attempt or political will to integate it with the overall planning (planning? whats that?) of the City- the big issue has always been to make sure it doesnt cost the city anything.
So it has evolved into an odd mix of profitable, populist, lowest common denominator events like Folklife and Bumbershoot, and trophy memorials to the familes that used to own Seattle, like MCCaws, Wrights, and so on.
I think we missed the big chance when we didnt build the new City Library there- instead opting for a piece of nonfuctional jewelry downtown, because thats where it made sense to have a library 75 years ago.
A downtown library would have pulled in all types of day to day visitors to the Center, and changed the character from tourists and yahoos that it currently draws.
I applaud the current use of Center house as a small highschool- which, no doubt, will get the boot as soon as a more profitable tenant turns up.
The EMP was another totally missed opportunity- if we are really lucky, it may end up being a faint copy of Forrest Ackermans museum of sci-fi in his garage.
The silly building, certainly not one of Gehry's best, suffers from Gehry's affliciton of "turd from space"- the man is unaware of what urban context could possibly mean, so the EMP as a building neither relates to the city, or the Center, has no real usable spaces inside for much of anything, and wasted a hundred million dollars of somebody elses money in the process. If ever there was an arguement for higher income taxes, thats it.
Instead, it could have featured several different sizes of usuable performance spaces (I have seen a lot of bands there, in the lobby, and as lobbies go, it sucks. The airport hotels would be better- and at least they have bars) It could have had a outdoor/indoor beer garden restaurant, with a Tom Douglas franchise. It could have had low cost rehearsal rooms, and a recording studio, record label, and a better radio station, with real people as disc jockeys instead of Hot Topic Models.
Instead, its Pauls Garage, and soon enough, I predict, we will see Paul's Garage Sale.
I suppose, once he loses interest, it could make a good indoor skatepark, since Bill tore down the old one....
I am dubious about Master Brewsters constant refrain of "tear it down, and put in a lawn". First, Who Mows? When we need special bond levy's for potholes, who the heck is gonna maintain all this CentralParkDom? Second, who goes there except dog walkers and homeless people? Most every open space downtown already is perfumed with the high and low cost smells of canine and human urine- We need institutions, businesses, and other draws for everday people, not more wet open space, which will be either concrete or grass, for low cost maintanence.
The Center needs bars that have music- no nearby neighbors to complain. It needs decent restaurants, record stores, an ongoing craft fair/ farmers market, and its still not too late to turn the Koolhaus into a headquarters for the latest software startup, and build a real library, with nice outdoor spaces to sit and read.
Posted Mon, Apr 30, 10:39 a.m. Inappropriate
....: um seattle's golden era is now. i get so frustrated with all the people that expect a city as beautifull as seattle to to stay as a metro of 1.5 million. we're coming up on 4 million and i'll bet it only take us 10 more years to get to 5 million. i love the seattle center, but it doesn't fit with the current seattle. it needs more open space and more modern exhibits. i read an article about how seattle is the center of the gaming industry, and it talked about the possability of making it like the hollywood but for the gaming industry. it makes perfect sense the gaming industry brings in more money then the movie industry. i'm not even a fan of video games and it sounds like a great idea to me
Posted Mon, Apr 30, 11:11 a.m. Inappropriate
Surely not. We can do better than that, by remaking it as a park and civic gathering place to benefit people who actually live here. Contrary to Berger's claims, there's nothing elitist about parks: they are open to everyone, and address the essential human need for fresh air and contact with nature.
Of course, the undercurrent in Berger's discussion of the Seattle Center redesign is his bitter opposition to urban density, and the cultural changes that come with it.
It's hard to tell what part of Seattle's ongoing transformation Knute Berger disdains the most. Is it the physical signs of change - the new condos, the skinny towers? Or is it the people who live here that really offend his sensibilities - the "upscale office workers", the "young and affluent" lounging at a sidewalk cafe? Seems Berger has such contempt for these perceived invaders of his territory that he wants to drag down quality of life for everybody, just to keep "newcomers" away. He's an unusual specimen - the populist who can't stand people.
I don't have a problem with urban density skeptics. We're in new territory here, moving back to city centers after 60 years of abandonment for the suburbs The evolution of our cities needs to be managed carefully, and we should realize there will be some disruptive cultural changes.
But Berger's potshots at "yuppification" - his catch-all for anything he doesn't like - aren't adding to the much-needed discussion of Seattle's future. His agenda - stop growth and reclaim a Seattle that no longer exists - is impossible. How do you go forward from there?
Posted Mon, Apr 30, 3:09 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: Bulldoze the Fun Park, create a real park for city residents: Just to correct a common misconception: the Seattle Center isn't just for tourists. Fully half of the users are locals (from King County). It is true that it is the city's top tourist attraction, but the city intends to keep it as a regional resource. The users are primarily middle-income families.
Posted Tue, May 1, 9:19 a.m. Inappropriate
Myrtle-Edwards is just a hop-skip away from the Center.
If Seattle is ever going to be a halfway world class city, culturally, it would put up something like Shakespeare's theater, that was populist in the sense of entertaining the various Elizabethan classes all at once. Nothing of the kind will happen as long as you have an Opera and a Ballet that are upper-middle class museums, and middle class theaters that cater to folks who are more interested in food than what theater can do.
This town is profoundly nepotistic as only the provinces are.
Yet because folks drink lattes they have forgotten that they are really Bungalow Joes and Janes. Seattle is on the cusp, it has been off and on for about 100 years, but usually keeps slipping back into the mud.
MICHAEL ROLOFF
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
http://www.roloff.freeservers.com/about.html
Posted Tue, May 1, 3:09 p.m. Inappropriate
I lived for ten years a couple of miles from Hollywood, and it is a great example of exactly what we dont want for the Seattle Center- the carcass has been sucked dry of any character, small businesses, real people, or decent food or drink by Disney and giant developers. Its a street of Cardboard Cutouts, behind which lurk minimum wage teenage pickpockets.
Since Seattle is also very important in the online Porn industry, maybe we should have a museum and theme park at the Center devoted to that, too?
No, what the Center needs is not more monuments to commerce. It needs more things like the VERA project- a small community based venue that is REAL. I have spent too many years of my life in the San Juan Rooms, and think that giving the old Snoqualmie room to VERA is one of the best things the Center has ever done.
And maybe they could build a skatepark...
Gates donated a half million bucks to replace the skatepark he tore down in January, which was very popular and well attended. According to the PI, and its articles about it, the Seattle Center personell have a great reason why every single square inch of the Center is all wrong for a new skatepark.
Posted Thu, May 3, 10:30 a.m. Inappropriate
Here are a few observations on the comments thus far:
1. A number of assumptions exist about DELETING existing structures/stakeholders, e.g., Center House or the Stadium or the Fun Forest. Let's assume that EVERYONE stays, unless new homes are found for existing tenants.
2. Green space is hard to argue against. Concentrating on laying out this space and doing renderings that show the vistas to be created is a good place to begin centrally and non-controversially. Ultimately a green at the center is a great core and hub to a green Seattle Center.
3. Parking is a challenge, yet presents opportunity. In a previous post I had proposed underground parking ala the UW's Red Square (as an I aside, I love the West entrance statue of Lenin--make that G.W.--strike that, George Washington). Underground parking is expensive, but enables the flexibiilty for more transforming scenarios above ground. . If done centrally, then the various parking garages and parking areas around the Center can be consolidated into one underground space, and current above ground parking space and garages used for other pursuits.
4. I love the idea of an amphitheatre (although I don't want to get rid of the stadium). The Seattle Center should be able to do Shakespeare ala NYC at Central Park or do open air concerts with a dedicated facility like many other venues. Certainly, an amphitheatre would be a great facility addition to Bumbershoot and other fairs, as well as for politicians, speakers at rallies and WTO protesters (might help to order the anarchists).
5. Space is at a premium, no matter how you look at it, so every part of the Center should feel obligated to get rid of "dead space." In looking at the Century 21 plans, such space appears to exist beneath the Space Needle and towards the Street. The entire fountain area of the Science Center is dated and should be revamped. Maybe move out the cool 1962 sculptures that are now hidden and ignored like homeless architects.
6. The Center itself needs a consortium of supporters and financiers to make the place go. A multi-public/multi-private/multi-non-profit partnership is needed. By that I mean State/County/City/UW funding and Arts/Sports/Science funding and Microsoft/Boeing/Amazon/Starbucks/Paccar/KeyBank/etc. funding. Public input and great design is important, yet what works best is frequent feedback and checkpointing with all stakeholders so that you don't get the ugly Seattle Process hairball clogging up the imagination and execution machines.
7. As much as it seems that I'm proposing a Corporate Seattle Center (or a corpulent Seattle Center corpse) Ultimately, a true multi-cultural theme must be part of the vision for the Center, which has become a ho-hum destination for well-off white folks (see the economic dev study on the Century 21 website). The broad public needs to see a new invigorated Seattle Center as a great place. The International Fountain is currently its soul; Mossback has noted something similar. How about a signature sculptural or architectural component to symbolize a multi-cultural Seattle?
Some blue sky ideas:
- a large climbing-rock like, multi-cultural globe
- a series of Rushmore like sculptures grouped provactively throughout the Center including, e.g., Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha, King, Muhammad & Mother Teresa or Pancho Villa, Madam Curie, Einstein & Helen Keller.
Some people ask Why? Others ask Why not?
Why not a great Seattle Center?
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