Thursday, December 9, 2010

MVVA wins Gateway Arch Competition

The multi-disciplinary team lead by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates have been selected to proceed to the planning stage of the Gateway Arch Competition in St. Louis, Missouri. The jury chose the MVVA Team over four others competing to enliven the area around the Gateway Arch and connect it to downtown St. Louis, the Mississippi River and the Illinois bank.


The MVVA Team’s design concept narrative describes their vision for the redesigned park: “Responding to the Memorial’s monumental scale is the central challenge of this assignment. Given the site’s sheer immensity, sectional complexity, and competing scales—all in a parcel surrounded by a crushing maze of infrastructure—we believe that expanding the site’s scalar and experiential range is crucial to engaging the wide-ranging competition goals. The creation of a new range of more intimate experiences, based primarily in landscape, will be the main engine for the transformation of the Memorial and its relationship with both the city and the river. We imagine a powerfully connective landscape that operates simultaneously in several ways—a landscape that will not only draw visitors from around the world but also serve as a new locus of civic energy in the daily lives of the citizens of St. Louis. The redesigned Memorial will be a centerpiece of civic culture, an engine of regional economic growth, a showcase for sustainable ecological restoration, and a celebration of the national significance of this historic place".
The project will be constructed by Oct. 28, 2015, the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Arch.

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