Imagine that your city has a law saying that whenever a new road, bridge, or large building is constructed, a tiny portion of the budget must go toward art. Not asphalt, not bricks—but paintings, statues, and sculptures for everyone. That is exactly the kind of law Seattle introduced in 1973. It was called simply the “One Percent for Art” program. Then, nearly thirty years later, that art had to flee for its life—because the enormous stadium where it lived was scheduled to be demolished.
The Law That Hid Art Everywhere
In 1973, Seattle officials created a simple rule: whenever the city spent money building something large—a bridge, a water-treatment plant, or a library—one percent of the cost had to go to artists. Seattle was the first city in the United States to make this an official law.
Because of this rule, art appeared in the most unexpected places. Sculptures stood beside water-treatment plants. Mosaics decorated the walls of electrical substations. Even in places ordinary people rarely visited, artists left something beautiful behind. City officials wanted to show that art was not a luxury reserved for museums; it should be part of everyday city life.
One such place was the Kingdome, a giant domed stadium built in 1976. Inside and around it, works by professional artists were installed under the One Percent for Art program. Sculptor Buster Simpson, for example, created works specifically connected to the stadium.
A Stadium with a Death Date
As the years passed, the Kingdome grew old. In the early 2000s, city officials decided that the aging stadium was no longer needed and that a new one would be built in its place. The fastest way to get rid of such an enormous structure was an implosion. Engineers set an exact date and time when hundreds of kilograms of explosives would bring the stadium down in a matter of seconds.
That was when the real problem began. For many years, art purchased with public money had been located inside and around the stadium. If nothing was done, the sculptures and other works would simply turn into rubble along with the building.
The people responsible for preserving the city’s art—including archivists, museum conservators, and members of the city’s arts commission—had very little time left. They had to act before the explosion.
Detective Work with Documents and Blueprints
Saving the art turned into a real investigation. Archivists searched through old documents from the 1970s: contracts with artists, invoices for materials, and photographs of the stadium just after it opened. They had to determine exactly which works of art existed, where they were located, and who owned them.
It was not easy. Over more than twenty years, some documents had been lost, some plaques bearing artists’ names had disappeared, and certain works had been nearly forgotten—they had simply become “part of the wall” to the thousands of people who passed them every day.
But the team succeeded. They compiled a list of all the works, found ways to remove whatever could be salvaged, and arranged for the art to move to new homes in Seattle’s schools, libraries, and parks. Instead of vanishing beneath a cloud of dust, some of the sculptures can still be seen in entirely different parts of the city. Now, however, they tell a story not only about a stadium, but also about how art can outlive even the building where it was created.
Why This Story Matters
The Kingdome was imploded in March 2000. In just a few seconds, the enormous building became a pile of concrete. But thanks to the people who took the time to dig through old archives and acted before it was too late, the art did not die with the stadium.
This story is a small reminder of a much bigger law. The One Percent for Art program, created in Seattle nearly fifty years ago, changed the way American cities thought about art: not as a decoration for the wealthy, but as something everyone has the right to see—a beautiful work nearby, whether beside a bridge, a water tower, or even a stadium that no longer exists.
