Gateway
Arch,
2012
The great Finnish-American
architect Eero Saarinen was commissioned in the late 1940s to design something
for St. Louis that would commemorate the city’s history as a jumping off point
for westward exploration. No doubt there were many who were expecting a “monument”
or, worse, a “memorial.” Efforts to create such a commemoration had moved in
fits and starts for many years.
What Saarinen gave St.
Louis is better than a mere monument. Calling it a memorial seems insulting. It
was a gift, a structure as elegant, timely and conceptual today as it was when
it was finished almost fifty years ago.
Saarinen’s gift was an
arch, and not just any arch. It’s a
soaring arc of steel more than sixty stories high. Saarinen said that he wanted
the arch to be "transcending in spiritual and aesthetic
values…one central feature: a single shaft, a building, an arch, or something
else that would symbolize American culture and civilization."
According to The New York Times
architectural critic of the day, Saarinen also wanted the national park around
the base of the arch to be "be so densely covered with trees” that it
would not only separate the arch from the noise and chaos of a busy downtown,
but also convey a feeling of the uncharted wilderness into which settlers
departed when they headed west from St. Louis.
Like any kind of unexpected
artistic expression, some local citizens initially resisted Saarinen’s arch
concept. They wanted a monument, after all. There’d been long standing
disagreement over the merit of even having a monument at all. So the idea that
they’d resist something as modern and conceptual as a stainless steel arch isn’t
surprising.
The design wasn’t the only
tricky part, though. It took fifteen years just to figure out how the arch
could be built without toppling over before the keystone section could be
installed at the peak.
Today visitors can ride a
little tram to the top of the arch and peek out narrow windows. “Little” isn’t
an exaggeration. The compartments—it’s probably safer to call them capsules
because they actually hang from a track—are smaller than the inside of a Mini
Cooper and take between four minutes or so to creep and clank up the inside of
the arch. Being claustrophobic, I wasn’t about to get into one. Besides, the
views of Illinois and Missouri from the top of the arch are broad and flat.
(You can probably see the other side of each state from there, but who cares?)
For me, the fascinating
discovery about this monument is that it takes on different shapes depending on
where you’re standing. From an aerial perspective or from a distance,
Saarinen’s symmetrical arch is obvious. (Both the width and height are 630
feet.) But the closer you get the more it takes on a seemingly infinite number
of other shapes. This, for me, is the symbol of opportunity that awaited those
brave enough to leave the comforts of the East behind, stake their claim and
take their chances on life in the American West.
Gateway Arch [section], 2012
Gateway Arch [section], 2012
Gateway Arch [section], 2012
Gateway Arch [section], 2012
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ReplyDeleteWow--love your photos of it, Chris! I'm heading there this fall, and I'll have to think about your perspective when I see it again. Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteNice shots!
ReplyDelete