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. — The Washington Post
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.
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Don't tell Fox News.
Great park design, fixes a lot of problems at the site. But the politics are patronizing-- "the Jefferson National Expansion Park has been recast as the Gateway Arch National Park" how about the Saarinen Gateway Arch National Park? The Arch did symbolize something--the Louisiana Purchase, and westward expansion. But if you are going to recast it, why not make it an ode to Modernism/Futurism itself, an American invention? That's how I always thought of it.
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