The site reads like a graphic composition, drawing upon Bayer’s core skills as a print designer. The Earthworks is Bayer’s most publicly acclaimed work due to its successful resolution of two perceived competing interests: art and ecology. However, Bayer likely saw these components as merely integrated parts of the larger field of design practiced in its myriad of expressions – an approach he had employed for his entire, remarkable professional career.

Shortly before his death in 1984, Bayer approved several minor additions to the park including a stairway to an adjacent roadway, an amphitheatre, a shelter, restrooms, and lighting. The additions were incorporated along the periphery of the park so as not to impinge on its original design integrity.

    Photo © Christopher Rauschenberg

The Earthworks’ significance lies not only in the fact that it is an internationally-renown functional artwork, but also in the fact that it set a precedent of collaboration between city agencies, artist, and engineering consultants. The Earthworks is also significant for the role it played in altering the course of public art, environmental art, and landscape architecture. As a landscape design, the Earthworks combined and balanced cultural and ecological concerns and served as an example of how to transcend the division between the schools of “artists” and “ecologists” within the field. Landscape architects continue to search for balanced solutions that address both the natural and the manmade. Today, tourists from around the world visit the Earthworks, recognizing the equally significant intentions of the collaborating organizations and artist – the artistic sculpture, ecological design, and the inviting park.

In April 2008, the King County Landmarks Commission, acting for the City of Kent, waived the 40 year threshold and designated the Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks as a City of Kent Landmark. Nominated by the Kent Arts Commission, the Earthworks is the City’s first designated landmark.

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