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Harborview Art Plan: Creating a Place to Heal

Fernanda D’Agostino

Harborview Medical Center

A holistic plan for a medical campus encourages healing and connection.

Christopher Martin Hoff (1976–2012). Harborview Construction (detail), 2008. Oil on canvas. King County Public Art Collection

In 2000, Harborview Medical Center was gearing up for a number of significant capital projects as part of a new voter-approved bond program, and the Seattle Design Commission requested that these projects take a holistic approach with the growing and evolving Harborview campus in mind. To support this goal, 4Culture turned to artist Fernanda D’Agostino to create a comprehensive art plan that would serve as a conceptual guide for future commissions: Creating a Place to Heal.

Intended to help the hospital community encourage healing and connect with the surrounding neighborhoods, the plan describes a series of design principles for architectural elements, landscape design, and commissioned works of art. Together these principles offer a vision for a vibrant tapestry of functional, beautiful spaces that provide comfort and inspiration to patients, their families, and Harborview staff.

The plan calls for greenspaces that assist with wayfinding across the campus while creating a strong sense of place, with considerations for lively pathways, uses of light, and aromatic or medicinal plants. It outlines opportunities for live arts on campus as well as ways that artworks—both inside and outside—can act as landmarks. Recognizing the importance of the relationships between Harborview staff and patients, it emphasizes the value of artworks that tell meaningful human stories, draw on patient experiences, and uplift patients as whole people beyond their illnesses or injuries. Likewise, the plan highlights the value of artworks that celebrate and reveal the science that makes healing possible.

Based in Portland, OR, D'Agostino creates sculptural and video-based installations for public spaces and was a frequent collaborator with the late artist Valerie Otani (1947–2020). D'Agostino has been making site-specific projects since 1993 and her public artworks can be seen in Seattle, Portland, San Jose, CA, and elsewhere. Her work has also been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Fernanda D’Agostino. Harborview Art Plan: Creating a Place to Heal, 2000. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection.
Fernanda D’Agostino. Harborview Art Plan: Creating a Place to Heal, 2000. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection.
Fernanda D’Agostino. Harborview Art Plan: Creating a Place to Heal, 2000. Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, WA. King County Public Art Collection.

About the Location

Harborview Medical Center

For more than a century, Harborview Medical Center has functioned as a unique community and regional resource. It is a county hospital, a teaching and research institution, a regional trauma and burn center, and the primary health care provider for many low-income and disenfranchised people in the community. Harborview embraces its mission of treating everybody…

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