Archinect - News

Blair Kamin's 2018 best architecture moments in Chicago and the Midwest

2018-12-10T14:27:00-05:00

Construction cranes filled the skyline, but much of the best work in Chicago and the Midwest in 2018 was tucked away in settings far from the high-rise commercial maelstrom.

Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Blair Kamin, takes a look back and lists 2018's most notable architecture moments in the Windy City and the greater Midwest region, including the transformation of Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch landmark in St. Louis, the anticipated new home of the Chicago Architecture Center planned by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659 art venue, and Studio Gang's energy-friendly Solstice apartment tower.

Cooper Robertson emphasizes Universal Design in new Gateway Arch Museum

2018-10-03T15:40:00-04:00

In redesigning the Gateway Arch Museum that opened in July, Cooper Robertson — along with James Carpenter Design Associates and Trivers Associates — made it a priority to integrate Universal Design, which goes beyond ADA regulations to create buildings that can be equally accessible to people of all abilities. The redesign adds 45,000 square feet of new museum area and over 100,000 square feet of reconfigured galleries, public education facilities, and visitor amenities.

A gently sloping plaza, architecturally integrated ramps, and engaging exhibitions allow everyone to experience the building in the same way. The redesign doesn't just “simply provide accessible ‘alternatives’,” said Cooper Robertson's Scott Newman in a statement. And for the first time, a special exhibition in the tram lobby allows visitors to experience the top of the Arch through live webcam feeds from the observation deck.

“The Gateway Arch Museum reflects a fundamental shift in the public sector and the design ...

St. Louis' Gateway Arch reopens with a new name and a new museum that reexamines the history of U.S. western expansion

2018-07-03T17:30:00-04:00

The name change, however, also reflects two facts that have long bedeviled the arch and its role within the National Park Service. Saarinen’s soaring arc of steel is an icon of the automobile age, an attraction that has always been more about playing to the passing audience of the interstates than any particular relevance to the idea of national expansion. It also honors historical events that are now understood as deeply problematic within the larger trajectory of American history.

It's a big day for the city of St. Louis, which is celebrating the grand reopening of the Gateway Arch. The monumental renovation project includes a new name — the Gateway Arch National Park, a new museum, and a major redesign of the park's urban landscape. The exhibitions inside the museum reexamine moments in the city's history, the consequences of the U.S.'s westward expansion, and the design and construction of the Arch.

You can see the new museum come to life in EarthCam's construction time-lapse video below.

The Gateway Arch's newly landscaped grounds reconnect an icon to its city

2018-03-13T15:32:00-04:00

... [Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates] have renovated and expanded the arch grounds, originally designed by famed Modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley. New parks adjacent to the grounds are intended to funnel activity to the riverfront and work as connective urban tissue for the city’s most iconic feature, as well as to serve as a pedestal for that quicksilver curve.

The winning design by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates has reconnected the St. Louis Gateway Arch with its surrounding environment. The $380-million renovation allows for tourists and locals alike to enjoy the entire space around the Arch. The freshly landscaped grounds are mostly open now, however a formal opening will take place this July with the new museum.

The "Park Over the Highway" is now underway

2013-08-14T09:55:00-04:00

Officials from the U.S. Department of Transportation announced the start of the aptly named "Park Over the Highway" plan in St. Louis, Missouri earlier this month. The plan's objective is to connect the iconic Gateway Arch grounds and Downtown St. Louis by building a park over the Interstate-70, which has divided the city from the Mississippi waterfront for the past 50 years. Last month, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) awarded KCI Construction Company $26.4 million to begin construction. The project is expected to be done by Fall 2015.

As depicted in the rendering above, the extensive renovation project also involves re-routing roads, laying groundwork pedestrian and bike paths, and general enhancement of the landscape.

Funds for the entire $380 million plan came from public sources like federal grants and a voter-approved local sales tax as well as private contributions from major supporters like the CityArchRiver foundation.

U.S. Transportation ...

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.