Project Description
St. Louis has debuted a new attraction at its famous landmark: On July 3, the museum at Eero Saarinen’s steel-and-concrete Gateway Arch reopened following an expansion and renovation by Cooper Robertson and James Carpenter Design Associates, both New York firms, with local firm Trivers Associates. The Museum at the Gateway Arch added roughly 45,000 square feet to the subterranean space formerly occupied by the Museum of Westward Expansion, and features a new glass entrance facing downtown. The $380 million CityArchRiver project also added new parkland over a highway, adding to Dan Kiley’s landscape.
This article appeared in ARCHITECT’s August 2018 issue.
FROM COOPER ROBERTSON:
As part of the winning team for The City + The Arch + The River 2015 international design competition, Cooper Robertson and James Carpenter Design Associates, with Trivers Associates, is designing an expanded and renovated Gateway Arch Museum and Visitor Center. Located at the base of Eero Saarinen’s iconic Gateway Arch within the National Park Service’s Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the underground Museum has suffered from a lack of visibility and is in need of a more relevant and contemporary narrative.
The Museum will expand west towards downtown with a new entrance opening onto a redesigned and expanded Luther Ely Smith Square that will span over the interstate. The design for the expansion and renovation of the Museum strengthens the physical connections between the City and the Arch by means of a dynamic plan that is organized along a linear spine with security, visitor services and amenities at the entry level, followed by a narrative exhibition that leads to the Arch itself on the lower level, and culminates in a tram ride to the Top of the Arch. Nearly 45,000 square feet of new museum space will be added and over 100,000 square feet of existing space to be reconfigured into new exhibition galleries, public education facilities, and visitor amenities. The trip through this exhibit merges seamlessly with the trip up the Arch, and provides a coherent and meaningful context for viewing St. Louis, the River, and out to the West.