"The Land at Our Feet": Preserving Pioneer Square's Queer Landscape

Abstract

From 1933-1974, Seattle’s Pioneer Square was home to a network of social and public spaces that formed an LGBTQ cultural landscape. That landscape is now lost. This thesis examines the question of how to make invisible heritage visible by looking at the particular case of Pioneer Square’s historical queer territory. Pioneer Square, the birthplace of Seattle, has a historical storyline that is portrayed in popular narratives but that does not usually include its LGBTQ significance.Through historical mapping, spatial analysis, and a series of iterative design speculations, this thesis both preserves the urban cultural landscape’s memory and establishes a foundation for further preservation actions.