Landscape Information
Developed for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair (Century 21 Exposition), this 74-acre civic campus incorporates thirteen square blocks north of downtown at the base of Queen Anne Hill. In 1883 Denny and Louisa Boren donated the land, known as both Potlach Meadows and “the prairie,” to the city for its development into civic grounds. Several public buildings, including an auditorium and armory, were erected in the early twentieth century and later incorporated into the fairgrounds.
Under supervising architect Paul Thiry, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin developed a landscape master plan transforming existing streets into “Boulevards of the Worlds.” Halprin grouped existing and proposed structures along these promenades to direct visitors towards focal points such as Modernist pavilions, fountains, and plazas. Other additions include the Space Needle by architects John Graham & Company and Victor Steinbrueck; the Federal Science Pavilion (now Pacific Science Center) by Minoru Yamasaki, the Century 21 Coliseum (now Climate Pledge Arena), and a monorail system (now Seattle Center monorail) that connected the fairgrounds to downtown. Landscape architect Garrett Eckbo and architects Nathaniel Owings and Paul Thiry moderated a competition resulting in the International Fountain, whose design, by architects Kazuyuki Matsushita and Hideki Shimizu, evoked a lunar landscape.
After the fair several structures were repurposed and others demolished. From 1962 to 1964 Thiry and landscape architect Richard Haag redesigned the grounds into a civic center with gardens connected by covered passageways and tree-lined paths. Since 1990 several master plans have guided the rehabilitation of historic features and the development of new projects, such as Broad Street Green (1995) and Kreielsheimer Promenade (2005) by landscape architects Nakano Associates and Kathryn Gustafson of Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (now GGN), respectively. Within the campus, the Space Needle and the Pacific Science Center are designated Seattle Landmarks, while the Century 21 Coliseum was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
