AKA: City of Seattle, Parks and Recreation Department, Gas Works Park, Play Barn, Wallingford, Seattle, WA

Structure Type: built works - industrial buildings - factories

Designers: Haag, Richard, Associates, Incorporated, Site Planners, Landscape Architects (firm); Richard Lewis Haag (landscape architect)

Dates: constructed 1937

1 story

Seattle, WA

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During the early years of Euro-American settlement of the region, in the 1850s-1960s, lumberman used the edges of Lake Union to locate sawmills; the location was perfect at the time, as it was close to supplies of trees and the lake to transport logs cheaply. The Seattle Gas Light Company gradually purchased parcels on Lake Union near what was known as Brown's Point, between 1900-1905. This entity was the largest private utility operating in Seattle at the time, and was later known as the "Seattle Lighting Company," (from c. 1906-1930) to the "Seattle Gas Company" (from 1930-1956). Initially, the Seattle Lighting Company used the plant to convert coal to gas for use in lighting; the product later found use for heating, refrigeration and cooking purposes. Seattle Lighting maintained a coke oven at the plant to transform coal into its constituent parts, water, coal-gas, and coal-tar (as well as ash and carbon residue.) By 1937, this process was no longer commercially viable, and the coke oven and related coal-to-gas machinery were removed. Two oil-to-gas conversion mechanisms were installed in 1937, and two more ten years later. This Exhauster/Compressor Building was erected at this time to shelter the new oil-gas equipment. Additional machinery was also installed in 1946-1947 to produce charcoal briquets from residue produced during the oil-to-gas conversion process. This shed fell into disuse when the Seattle Gas Company closed the Brown's Point facility in 1956; in 1962, it sold the plant to the City of Seattle. The City hoped to locate a park on the 19-acre property, just as was envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm when it created its Seattle Parks Plan of 1903.

The building was renovated after 1971 by Richard Haag and Associates working for the City of Seattle. Haag had developed the plan for Gas Works Park in 1969, and it took two years to convince city administrators and the public that the unconventional adaptive reuse plan had merit. Haag transformed the Exhauster/Compressor Building into the Play Barn, a labyrinthine area of exploration for children. Haag insured that the facility was safe for the public and painted the complex interior machinery bright colors. In late spring 2011, the City of Seattle repainted the machinery brown, contrary to Haag's original intent.

PCAD id: 10126