Background
Friends of Inscape
is a tenant-led grassroots organization working to preserve the Inscape Arts Building as an affordable arts and culture space for the benefit of the community.
From 1932 till 2004, the US Immigration & Naturalization Service building served as Seattle’s detention and processing center for immigrants. In 2008, a group of investors purchased the building, renamed it Inscape, and built the spaces out as artist studios with the assistance of arts-friendly tax help from the city. A thriving artist community has been growing there ever since.
Friends of Inscape emerged from that community in March 2021, when the owners put the historic building on the market.
Rarely do cities have the opportunity to both preserve a vital and often overlooked piece of history and strengthen the future of creative and underrepresented communities in the process. The Inscape Arts and Cultural Center presents such an opportunity.
We are working to realize this goal in collaboration with public and private partners, to build something that truly demonstrates how powerful the intersection of place, people, past and present can be.
What is Inscape?
Shannon Wallack
Shannon Wallack
Brian Lane working at Print Zero
CJ Marin
Andrea Gahl - Millennial Madonna
MichelleLenae.com - MountainRing.com
Artist-in-residence Fumi Amano - Shape of memory
Susanna Bluhm - At the Beach
Andrea Gahl - Diné Surgeon
Susanna Bluhm
Brian Lane working at Print Zero
High Wall exhibition: Satpreet Kahlon
Susan Cole - Mort d'une Fleur 1
High Wall workshop with Dan Hawkins
High Wall workshop with Dan Hawkins
Path with Art at Urban ArtWorks
Laura Thorne
Branchwater studio - Tania Kupczak
Print Zero
Print Zero
Path with Art at Urban ArtWorks
Michael Lorifice - Leaving you the morning in its antiquity
PaTan's Art
PaTan's Art
Andrea Gahl - Safety
MichelleLenae.com - MountainRing.com
Vaughn Bell - design work for Salish Sea Streets, 2021
inside studio 202
Laura Thorne - What appears #9
Marena Shear - Untitled
Marena Shear - Untitled
Meagan Murphy
Meagan Murphy
Michael Lorifice - Leaving you the morning in its antiquity 3
Path with Art at Urban ArtWorks
Tenants
Inscape tenants are artists, small creative businesses, and non profit organizations focused on arts and culture. We are fabricators and designers, artists and artisans of all disciplines, including performance art, theatre, music, dance, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, weaving, woodworking, painting, printmaking, photography, architecture, design, digital media and a wide variety of other mediums of creative expression.
A number of tenants serve the wider arts community as part of their mission, including Urban Artworks, Print Zero, NFFTY and Shunpike. Many individual artists offer classes, workshops, events, and projects like the Big Building Bash and the American Superhero Project. Tenants run building-specific events (open studios, holiday markets) and programs like the Inscape Artist Residency and the High Wall on a volunteer basis.
Porches: Tar graffiti made by detainees
Mary Peck - 19. Interior view of dormitory 2-A, second floor. Camera pointed southwest. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Basement: Detainees were searched here
Mary Peck - 2. North elevation. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Mary Peck - 15. Entry vestibule, first floor. Camera pointed north. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Mary Peck - 17. Interior view of second floor corridor, detention section, east end of the building. Camera pointed east. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Mary Peck - 12. Detail of building facade on Airport Way showing lantern. Camera pointed south. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Porches: Tar graffiti made by detainees
Mary Peck - 21. Interior view of Immigration Courtroom, Room #308, third floor at west end of the building. Camera pointed north. - U.S. Immigrant Station & Assay Office, 815 Airport Way, Seattle, King County, WA - 1996, Library of Congress
Dan Hawkins - Inscape interior before renovations
Dan Hawkins - Inscape interior before renovations
Dan Hawkins - Inscape interior before renovations
Building
The Inscape Arts Building is Seattle’s former Immigration Station and Assay office, reconfigured as an arts complex. Built in 1932, the 77,000 sq ft unreinforced masonry neoclassical building is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It holds 125 rugged concrete-floor studio spaces ranging in size, shape, and amenity (sinks, roll-up doorways, etc), two large historic porches, hallway display space, a black box theater, and a drive-in loading area. The building has not been seismically retrofitted; it also has some (contained) asbestos and lead.
The building’s atrium holds a permanent installation of art and information about immigration in Seattle, the result of a partnership with the Wing Luke Museum. Signs throughout the building mark significant locations and feature images of the sites before the building was transformed from detention center to creative community.
The building is listed for sale as part of a property that includes a 12,888 sq ft narrow developable parcel (currently a parking lot).
Project & Leadership Team
Tara Tamaribuchi
Inscape Tenant
www.taratamaribuchi.com
Susan Cole
Inscape Tenant
www.coleimaging.com
Kirsten Mohan
Inscape Tenant
www.kirstenmohan.com
Nate Gowdy
Inscape Tenant
www.nategowdy.com
Britta Johnson
Inscape Tenant
www.thekmpi.net