Landscape proposals for the St Louis Gateway Arch

A design competition to revamp the area surrounding Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch in St Louis, Missouri was launched in December 2009. 

The brief from the National Park Service was straightforward: to take one of America's first urban park sites and weave it into the fabric of the St Louis region, connecting it with both sides of the Mississippi River.  

The significance of the site and Saarinen's iconic landmark should not be forgotten.  Standing at 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide at its base, The Arch is considered by many to be Saarinen’s masterpiece. Designed in 1947 as a memorial to honour America's western pioneers, it is the tallest monument in the United States and attracts more than four million visitors each year, who ride the trams (egg-shaped elevators) to the observation area at the top of the arch.

The design competition attracted more than 50 teams including Studio Daniel Libeskind, Adjaye Associates and Rafael Viñoly. This led to a shortlist of five teams including Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), Behnischen Architekten, PWP Landscape Architecture with Foster + Partners, SOM and Weiss/Manfredi, and all of these shortlisted proposals are illustrated in this gallery.

But it was MVVA who won the competition for their proposed network of finely grained interventions with a holistic philosophy of ecological urbanism. The deadline is on for completion by 28 October 2015 – the 50th anniversary of Saarinen’s elegant Gateway Arch.