February 11, 2010

connecting the arch with the city

Tyler Green covers the project that will finally connect the Gateway Arch more directly to downtown St. Louis.

The National Park Service and the city of St. Louis have sponsored a competition – which seems to be called Framing a Modern Masterpiece, but which should be nicknamed something less metaphor-abusing – to encourage architects to come up with plans to link downtown with the Arch with the Mississippi River. Yesterday the competition announced its nine finalists. The Architect’s Newspaper has the list, as does the competition itself, via PDF. (The list of firms that entered is pretty impressive too. Saarinen’s successor-firm, Roche-Dinkeloo, did not make the cut to nine.)

I grew up in St. Louis, so for me the Arch is myth-level sculpture; I blogged about the relationship between the Arch and the new Busch Stadium last summer.