Freeway Park - An Urban Landscape in Seattle

Discovering that I was close to the iconic Freeway Park designed by Lawrence Halprin and had time to experience this urban park was a highlight of our recent Pacific Northwest long weekend.

By chance, the park happened to be close to the two Yamasaki buildings and the church I had taken photos of earlier. Even though it was close to when I needed to return to our hotel, some unknown force told me to explore around the corner.

I happened to visit early on a Monday morning before the start of the workday so I had the park essentially to myself. I’m curious how much use it gets midday.

The park recently celebrated its 50th birthday and is well maintained.

The description below is from The Cultural Landscape Foundation website:

Completed by Lawrence Halprin & Associates under the design direction of Angela Danadjieva, the first phase of this 5.5-acre park opened in 1976 and remains one of the most compelling treatises on postwar landscape architecture.

The first park built over a highway, Freeway Park sits perched above Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle, where it uses the air rights of the interstate.

The park is defined by a series of irregular, linked plazas that are intertwined and enclosed by board-formed concrete planting containers and walls. Halprin’s office abstracted the topographic undulations of the city’s landscape. 

The separate areas of the park, known as the Central Plaza, East Plaza, and West Plaza, achieve consistency and cohesion through a shared materials palette of concrete, broadleaf evergreen plantings, and site furnishings.

The spaces are differentiated through the dynamism of the water features that occupy the spaces and the attendant differentiation of moods. 

Freeway Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.

Freeway Park photographs beautifully but shines in video where you can hear the water features. I have some videos posted online in my instagram @carolynadventuretours.