Seattle Now & Then: rear reflecting pool at PacSci (Pacific Science Center), 1962

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

THEN1: The rear (upper left) and front pools of the U.S. Science Pavilion (today’s Pacific Science Center, or PacSci) are seen through the slats of the Space Needle’s ring during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. Earlier maps and photos indicate that in the decades before the fair, the pavilion site included homes, offices, a gas station and a union hall. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
NOW1: Viewed through the slats of the Space Needle ring today, PacSci’s rear pool remains the same as in 1962 except for more recent additions, including a diamond-shaped walkway and waterworks exhibits. (Jean Sherrard)

Published in The Seattle Times online on May 4, 2023
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on May 7, 2023

Will the rear pool of Seattle’s shrine to science become a meadow?
By Clay Eals

One of my indelible experiences as an 11-year-old at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair (yours, too, if you attended?) came on a mocked-up, old-time Western street inside the U.S. Science Pavilion.

March 9, 1962, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p13.

The ruse was amusing but unsettling: Walking on a wooden ramp, I headed downhill. But adjacent storefronts slanted sharply forward, bending my mind to think I was climbing uphill.

This life-size optical illusion captivated local and international press. Even renowned British journalist and later TV host Alistair Cooke wrote that the exhibit produced “slight nausea” for visitors to the pavilion.

NOW3: This schematic depicts PacSci’s “significant enhancement option” for converting its rear pool into a meadow. Click the image to see PacSci’s packet for a Feb. 15, 2023, briefing for the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board. (Pacific Science Center)

Inducing similar disorientation today is a plan hatched by the same elegant and beloved shrine to science, which, post-fair, was renamed the Pacific Science Center and is newly rebranded “PacSci.”

PacSci is posing scenarios to transform its rectangular rear pool, the one behind its 5 famous curved arches. Several preliminary schemes call for filling the 20,500-square-foot basin with — no illusion — a waterless meadow.

NOW2: Grace Kim, PacSci consultant from the Seattle-based Schemata Workshop architecture and urban-design practice, discusses the rear pool, which scenarios call for filling with a meadow. Kim says that the PacSci rectangular basins’ constantly moving water does not reflect surrounding images, but nevertheless they are deemed reflecting pools because they prompt personal reflection. (Clay Eals)

The rationale is to remedy massive water leaks plaguing PacSci’s 61-year-old pair of pools. “Patchwork” repairs cost $170,000 a year, and complete restoration would run a whopping $17 million, says Will Daugherty, PacSci president and CEO. The pools, he says, face “catastrophic failure.”

THEN3: Minoru Yamasaki, architect of the U.S. Science Pavilion for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, appears on the cover of Time magazine on Jan. 18, 1963, amid a gleaming vision of the pavilion, rebranded today as PacSci. Touring the site 17 days before the fair opened, Yamasaki and co-architect Perry B. Johanson told The Seattle Times: “We wanted to create a place of serenity. We wanted visitors to be intrigued as they first see the five towers of the pavilion — and then the visual surprise of pools and fountains.” (Courtesy Time magazine / Seattle Times Archives)

The meadow plan, he asserts, is grounded in respect for PacSci’s original architect, the late Minoru Yamasaki, and for Northwest-flavored science.

“We understand our responsibilities as stewards” for a “magical setting,” Daugherty says, and a replacement meadow could stopper a long-term financial drain while showcasing indigenous plantings. “Our community wants their science center to look to the future. Adding life to the courtyard will help us meet these community needs.”

Click this image to see the online recording of PacSci’s 100-minute briefing on Feb. 15, 2023, for the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board. To access the briefing, use this passcode: mTJMSdD7. The briefing begins at time code 44:30. Shown are (from left) PacSci consultants Grace Kim, Shannon Nichol and David Peterson, as well as Will Dougherty, PacSci president and CEO.

A big hurdle is the city’s Landmarks Preservation Board, from which PacSci sought and received protective landmark status in 2009-10. In that context, PacSci holds prestige as one of only 5 structures among the city’s 400-plus official landmarks to have met all six of Seattle’s landmark criteria. Unsurprisingly, during a 100-minute PacSci briefing on Feb. 15, several landmarks-board members doubted they would approve meadow-izing the rear pool.

THEN2: At ground level in 1962, colored lighting illuminates the rear pool. (Seattle Municipal Archives)

Nor are other preservationists keen on it. Eugenia Woo of Historic Seattle says the interplay of PacSci’s pools, buildings and arches is indispensable to its appeal. To plug the rear basin, she says, would be as preposterous as infilling the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool in Washington D.C.

A meadow also could run afoul of already-disbursed state heritage capital grants that require PacSci to preserve its historic features, says Jay Baersten of the Washington State Historical Society. In addition, the plan has generated vigorous online debate.

We’ll see, but this is one plan that may end up all wet.

WEB EXTRAS

Thanks to Grace Kim , Tracy Sawan, David Peterson, Eugenia Woo, Jay Baersten, Erin Doherty and Heather Pihl for their invaluable help with this installment!

To see Clay Eals’ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos, and to hear this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.

Below are links to 5 Seattle landmark nomination documents from 2010, links to 2 online news articles, 8 additional photos, and, in chronological order, 6 more historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library) and Washington Digital Newspapers, that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

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Here are links to pdfs of the complete 2010 nomination of Pacific Science Center for Seattle landmark designation:

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Here are links to online stories in February 2023 on PacSci’s meadow proposal:

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At ground level in 1962, colored lighting illuminates the rear pool at the U.S. Science Pavilion. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
March 20, 1962, the U.S. Science Pavilion arches get finishing touches one month before the Seattle World’s Fair opens. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
The U.S. Science Pavilion arches and pools glow at night during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
The U.S. Science Pavilion arches and pools glow at night during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
The U.S. Science Pavilion arches and pools glow at night during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. (Seattle Municipal Archives)
Late 1930s photo of 320 John St., on site of today’s PacSci. Click image to see full property record card. (Puget Sound Branch, Washington State Archives)
1938 photo of 129 Third Ave. N., on site of today’s PacSci. Click image to see full property record card. (Puget Sound Branch, Washington State Archives)
April 15, 1958, photo of 129 Third Ave. N., on site of today’s PacSci. Click image to see full property record card. (Puget Sound Branch, Washington State Archives)
April 5, 1962, Seattle Times, page 3.
April 5, 1962, Seattle Times, page 14.
April 23, 1962, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, page 3.
April 23, 1962, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, page 13.
Oct. 25, 1962, Manchester Guardian Weekly, by Alastair Cooke.
April 16, 1992, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, page 2.

5 thoughts on “Seattle Now & Then: rear reflecting pool at PacSci (Pacific Science Center), 1962”

  1. The pools are a significant part of the Science Center’s design and reflect the grace of the arches and the vision of its architect, Yamasaki. They are integral to the entire site’s design. Science Center leadership: Please educate the public about this amazing work of Yamasaki, about him, and about the Science Center’s history related to the World’s Fair, instead of proposing this clumsy alteration that celebrates none of these things.

    1. Surely the problem of the water loss can be solved without removing the pool of water! To find out more about Minoru Yamasaki’s fascinating life, I highly recommend reading the touching children’s book, Shapes, Lines, and Light My Grandfather’s American Journey, written and illustrated by his granddaughter, Katie Yamasaki. You will recognize many of his buildings.

  2. I was an usher at the US Science Exhibit during the Fair and went on to become Executive Director of Pacific Science Center in 1972. I think it is appalling to even think about tinkering with Yamasaki’s masterpiece, just because of poor stewardship on the part of so called PACSY!!!

    They have a fundamental responsibility to live up to their historic status representations and repair it properly!

  3. Why do some of the articles refer to the arches as “archives”? Is that the plural of these glorious architectural serenities? I’d really like to know.

    1. That was just a repeated typo in several captions. They’re fixed now. Thanks! –Clay Eals

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