Gas Works Park - Historical Significance

Historical Significance

Gas Works Park is a unique landmark for the City of Seattle. The original structures qualify as industrial archaeology and are the last remaining examples of a type of technology. These structures have been double served by Gas Works Park for not only have they been preserved but they have been integrated into an innovative, ground-breaking park design. Paul Goldberger wrote in the New York Times “Seattle is about to have one of the nation’s most advanced pieces of urban landscape design. The complex array of towers, tanks and pipes of the gas works forms a powerful industrial still life ... serving both as a visual focus for the park and as a monument to the city’s industrial past. The park represents a complete reversal from a period when industrial monuments were regarded, even by preservationists, as ugly intrusions on the landscape, to a time when such structures as the gas works are recognized for their potential ability to enhance the urban experience.” (NY Times, 8/30/75) Few, if any examples of Seattle architecture have won the national and international recognition given to Gas Works Park. The possibility for National Landmark status was recognized in 1971 when Victor Steinbrueck inventoried the Gas Works and Eric DeLony of the National Park Service wrote: “... Gas Works Park will not only be a unique first in the United States, if not the world, but will set an important precedent for the future preservation of industrial structure through an imaginative plan for adaptive use.”

The combination of a dramatic site and historic structures with the innovative park design has only increased the importance of Gas Works Park. The integrity of the original Gas Works is impressive. Although not all of the structures were saved, the character defining and prominent group of towers remains. The reuse of the pump house and boiler house has maintained building structure and much of the machinery. The site retains its original boundaries and lake frontage.

The Seattle Gas Company’s production plant located on Lake Union, now known as Gas Works Park, was co-founded by one of Seattle’s foremost pioneers, Arthur A. Denny. Throughout the first half of this century the Gas Company was a significant participant in and contributor to the growth of Seattle and adjoining communities. Although its primary product was city gas for energy, the plant also manufactured other basic products necessary for urban growth: tar for roofing; lampblack for pigment in tires and ink; charcoal briquets for odor-free and efficient home heating; sulfur for insecticides, ammonium sulfate, and sulfuric acid; and toluene for use in explosives. Toluene was in high demand during World War II and production of it was essential to the war effort (e.g., for making TNT and various types of gun powder). Through these products the gas works contributed in an integral way not only to daily commercial and domestic life in Seattle, but also to interests at a national level.

The structures and machinery standing in GWP today are remnants of the Industrial Revolution that transformed the face of the world. GWP is the sole survivor of gas works from that era in the United States, preserved as a public park. It is the only site that could be documented with most of the generating equipment intact. During its production era, this gasification plant was only one of 1400 such plants in the U.S., but it is now a unique and dramatic collection of industrial revolution era technology. Though obsolete, these towers, machines, and buildings are a monument to humanity’s inventiveness and offer a visual statement of pioneering technology. As UW Professor of Anthropology Kenneth Read so eloquently expressed it, “History sits on this little wasteland, not only the parochial history of a given city, but also a fragment of the chronicle of world and culture. It is certainly as valuable a document as anything preserved in the Museum of History and Industry.” (Read 1969, p 43-45)

In addition to its early history, the impact of Gas Works Park on land reclamation and industrial preservation attitudes and techniques extends far beyond Seattle. GWP has gained national and international standing as a prototype for industrial site conversions. It is studied, cited as an exemplary model, and referenced in educational textbooks and scholarly works. Since opening, GWP has won numerous awards for design excellence, vision, and innovation. The jury for the President’s Award of Excellence stated: “A remarkably original and attractive example of how to reclaim a seemingly hopeless and obsolete industrial installation. Instead of being destroyed or disguised, it has been transformed into a lighthearted environment ... A project of historical significance for the community. A symbol of American technology preserved.” A list of awards and exhibitions is provided in Appendix A, a selected bibliography of works on the topic of GWP in Appendix B, and a complete chronology of the site, dating from 1851, in Appendix C.

Gas Works Park and its Towers are of a scale and form easily seen from any location around Lake Union. The park is a tangible, highly visible piece of Seattle’s early history and of industrial revolution era technology. The Towers are a gothic sculptural presence and the contrast of these monolithic forms superimposed on the city skyline is unique and visually exciting. The experience is further enhanced by changes in perspective gained by moving around and through these forms of another era. “The black shapes of the towers on their grassy point leap out with startling clarity against the bright collage of the shoreline, silhouettes that might be the pictogram for the works of industrial man.” (Landscape Australia, February 1980)

Gas Works Park is also a symbol of attitudes about growth and progress. The structures and machinery that remain in GWP today speak about us, and about our history. These structures tell the story of what we valued decades ago, and they show us how we went about acquiring that which we valued. They remind us of a disregard of the environment which went along with the development of the city. These structures are a constant reminder of the very real industrial history of the site, of Lake Union and of Seattle. They tell us that Seattle was once (not that long ago) a stretch of wilderness, abundant with raw materials for fueling an industrial revolution. Gas Works Park presents in an engaging way the difference between then and now: “then” wilderness was seen simply as a storehouse of raw materials to feed hungry machinery; “now” we also place value on the wild places that remain.

Gas Works Park is also an outstanding work of its designer, Richard Haag, a prominent Seattle landscape architect. Haag is the only person to twice receive the American Society of Landscape Architects Award for design excellence, one of the awards given for his design of Gas Works Park. Haag has received international acclaim for his design of Gas Works Park.