Archinect - News

Gateway Arch 'Biography' Reveals Complex History Of An American Icon

2013-05-28T15:04:00-04:00

More than decade after Abbott's imaginative drawing, Eero Saarinen submitted a design for a gleaming metal curve to a competition, and the saga of the Arch began. Campbell, a history professor and the co-director of the Wendell Ford Public Policy Research Center at the University of Kentucky, joins Scott Simon to talk about the controversy around the design, the African-American residents who were displaced to build the Arch and whether the monument really symbolizes the opening of the West.

Sunflowers, pocket parks and other ideas aim to beautify vacant lots

2013-04-29T14:44:00-04:00

If you live in any large ‘rustbelt’ city in the Midwest, and St. Louis in particular, you’re probably all too familiar with the site of vacant lots. Empty land where homes and businesses used to be present a tough challenge for cities. This weekend, ground will be broken on several projects which aim to change the way neighborhoods and cities deal with vacant property. The Washington University Sustainable Land Lab Competition chose five winning designs from 48 design submissions.

Starbucks saves St. Louis "Flying Saucer"; Preservationists celebrate

2012-10-08T17:11:00-04:00

a Starbucks coffee shop opened its doors inside a renovated space-age concrete gas station at Grand and Forest Park boulevards, the subject to an intense demolition threat just one year prior. By the end of the day, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch broke the news that another chain, drug store CVS, was backing off its plans to demolish the elliptical mid-century modern AAA Building in Midtown. Within a few hours, months of protest ended in celebration.

Imploding the Pruitt-Igoe Myth

2012-01-20T21:22:00-05:00

Nearly 40 years after its destruction, the people interviewed for the film continue to wrestle with Pruitt-Igoe's legacy and its place in their lives. They love it and hate it, but don't resent it. Despite the piles of trash, mountains of drugs, and preponderance of crime, this was their home. For some, it was their first proper dwelling.