Events: Invigorate the Gateway Arch Design Competition

Most people I know haven’t yet decided what they’re doing after the New Year, let alone in 2015, but the National Park Service and City of St. Louis are planning ahead.  They have announced an international design competition “to invigorate the park and city areas surrounding of one of the world’s most iconic monuments, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis” (from a 12/8/09 press release), with the winning plan to be implemented by 2015.

GLUEspace readers know, I love the Arch.  I love the design, the ambition and magnitude, I love the futuristic pods that carry you to the top, I love seeing it from afar when driving into the city, and I love that it was designed by a metro-Detroiter.  But it’s not hard to see that the area surrounding the Arch doesn’t quite do it justice as a staging ground.  So it would be hard for a design competition to get me more enthused.  The press release goes on to say:

The competition will invite teams to create a new design for the Arch grounds and surrounding areas with 10 goals in mind:

• Create an iconic place for the international icon, the Gateway Arch.
• Catalyze increased vitality in the St. Louis region.
• Honor the character-defining elements of the National Historic Landmark.
• Weave connections and transitions from the city and the Arch grounds to the Mississippi River.
• Embrace the Mississippi River and the east bank in Illinois as an integral part of the national park.
• Mitigate the impact of transportation systems.
• Reinvigorate the mission to tell the story of St. Louis as the gateway to national expansion.
• Create attractors to promote extended visitation to the Arch, the city and the river.
• Develop a sustainable future for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.
• Enhance the visitor experience and create a welcoming and accessible environment.

The winning design will be announced in October 2010, and completed by October 28, 2015, the fiftieth anniversary of the completion of the Arch.  More information about the competition–including how to enter–can be found HERE.