The Olympic Sculpture Park, created and operated by the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

(SAM), is a public park with

modern Modern may refer to: History *Modern history ** Early Modern period ** Late Modern period *** 18th century *** 19th century *** 20th century ** Contemporary history * Moderns, a faction of Freemasonry that existed in the 18th century Philosophy ...

and

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

sculpture in downtown

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

. The park, which opened January 20, 2007, consists of a outdoor

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

museum, and indoor pavilion, and a beach on

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected m ...

. It is situated in Belltown at the northern end of the Central Waterfront and the southern end of

Myrtle Edwards Park Myrtle Edwards Park in Seattle, Washington is a public park along the Elliott Bay waterfront north of Belltown. It features a long bicycle and walking path and is a good place to see eagles, gulls, and crows. The park was originally named E ...

. The Olympic Sculpture Park is a free-admission outdoor

sculpture park A sculpture garden or sculpture park is an outdoor garden or park which includes the presentation of sculpture, usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings. A sculpture garden may be private, owned by ...

with both permanent outdoor sculpture, temporary works, and site-specific installations. The Seattle Art Museum regularly rotates a major artwork at the Olympic Sculpture Park, including installations by Victoria Haven from 2016 - 2017,

Spencer Finch Spencer Finch (born 1962 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American artist. After attending Hotchkiss School, The Hotchkiss School, he graduated ''magna cum laude'' with a B.A. in comparative literature from Hamilton College (New York), Hamilton Col ...

from 2017 - 2019, and Regina Silveira from 2019 - 2020.

History

The former industrial site was occupied by the oil and gas corporation

Unocal Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...

until the 1970s and subsequently became a contaminated

brownfield In urban planning, brownfield land is any previously developed land that is not currently in use. It may be potentially contaminated, but this is not required for the area to be considered brownfield. The term is also used to describe land pre ...

before the Seattle Art Museum proposed to transform the area into one of the only green spaces in

Downtown Seattle Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...

. The park's lead designer was

Weiss/Manfredi Weiss/Manfredi is a multidisciplinary New York City-based design practice that combines landscape, architecture, infrastructure, and art. The firm's notable projects include the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, the Brooklyn Botanic ...

Architects, who collaborated with Charles Anderson Landscape Architecture,

Magnusson Klemencic Associates Magnusson Klemencic Associates is an American structural and civil engineering consulting firm with its headquarters in Seattle, Washington. The company has completed projects worth more than $99 billion in 48 states and 54 countries. Significan ...

and other consultants.

Background

The idea of green space for large, monumental sculpture in Seattle was first discussed between

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

and

Bagley Wright Bagley Wright (April 13, 1924 – July 18, 2011) was an American real estate developer and philanthropist. He was president of Bagley Wright Investments, was a developer of Seattle's landmark Space Needle and chair of Physio Control Corp. from 196 ...

, Mary and

Jon Shirley Jon is a shortened form of the common given name Jonathan, derived from "YHWH has given", and an alternate spelling of John, derived from "YHWH has pardoned".Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

and Chairman of the Seattle Art Museum Board of Directors at the time), and then Seattle Art Museum director (and wife of William Gates Sr.) Mimi Gardner Gates. The idea grew further during a discussion in 1996 between Robert Measures, Martha Wyckoff, and Mimi Gardner Gates while stranded on a fly fishing trip in

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...

due to a helicopter crash. Wyckoff, being a trustee of the Trust for Public Land, soon after began an effort to identify possible locations for the park. A $30 million gift from Mary and Jon Shirley established them as foundational donors. As part of constructing the sculpture park, $5.7 million were spent transforming of the

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

and underwater shoreline inside Myrtle Edwards park. A three level underwater slope was built with 50,000 tonnes of

riprap Riprap (in North American English), also known as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armour (in British English) or rubble, is human-placed rock or other material used to protect shoreline structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion. ...

. The first level of the slope is large rocks to break up waves. The second is a flat "bench" level to recreate an

intertidal zone The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore, is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide (in other words, the area within the tidal range). This area can include several types of habitats with various species ...

. The lower level is covered with smaller rocks designed to attract sealife and large

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwa ...

. The aim for the recreated strand was to help revitalise juvenile salmon from the

Duwamish River