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Overview

The architectural firm of Bridges Burke Architects designed this headquarters complex for the City of Seattle's Water Department in the early 1970s and was completed in 1972.

Building Notes

By the early 1970s, the City of Seattle set aside funds from many public building projects for the commissioning of public art. This City of Seattle governmental priority followed earlier efforts to use public money to pay for governmental buildings as well as public art. During the New Deal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt instructed his Treasury Department to reserve 1% of building costs for the inclusion of public artwork in the building budget. This law operated between 1934 and 1943. Philadelphia became the first US city to initiate a law creating a budget for public art accompanying public buildings in 1959. Baltimore passed a comparable ordinance in 1964, and San Francisco three years later. This practice had become common in Seattle by 1971, but a formal ordinance allocating one percent for public art was passed by the City Council and Mayor in 05/1973. (See Alan J. Stein, Historylink.org, "Seattle's 1 Percent for Art Program," published 10/18/2013, accessed 03/21/2024.)

An article in the Tri-City Heraldsought out entries to be judged by a panel consisting of Larry Hanson, artist and Director of the Western Gallery at Western Washington State College, LaMar Harrington, Assistant Director of the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery and Christopher Kirk, artist and Seattle Arts Commission member: “The Seattle Arts Commission is conducting a competition for a commissioned ‘Water Art Work’ on behalf of the city of Seattle Water Department. The Seattle Arts Commission was established to promote and encourage the arts in Seattle, and the first board members were appointed last year by Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman. ‘The Center is a hub of activity relating to the supply of water to Seattle,’ added Edward M. Burke of Bridges Burke Architects, designers of the building complex. ‘The proposed ‘Water Art’ should reflect the basic nature of these activities, and should use water, its form and sound, as the primary medium in the composition.’” (See "'Water Art Work' art competition," Tri-City Herald, 04/09/1972, p. 17.)

“The Seattle Arts Commission is conducting a competition for a commissioned ‘Water Art Work’ on behalf of the city of Seattle Water Department. The Seattle Arts Commission was established to promote and encourage the arts in Seattle, and the first board members were appointed last year by Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman.

PCAD id: 25058