Heritage Park Plaza Added to National Register of Historic Places

Heritage Park Plaza in Fort Worth, Texas, a seminal work of landscape architecture by Presidential Medal of Arts winner Lawrence Halprin, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 10, 2010.

The park, dedicated on July 4, 1976 and opened in 1980, is the only site officially developed by Fort Worth in commemoration of the U.S. Bicentennial Celebration; and the site was once the location of the 19th century fort that preceded the city’s founding. The news of this designation will further energize local efforts to revitalize this Modernist design, which has been closed to the public since 2008.

According to information in the nomination to the National Register (submitted by the Texas Historical Commission):

Heritage Park Plaza is a half-acre of “interconnected rooms constructed from concrete and activated throughout by flowing water walls, channels and pools; each room contains plant materials in a structured grid that includes upper and lower lawns. An elevated walkway over the bluff grants access to vistas across the Trinity River valley.