Gateway Arch – The Eiffel Tower of St. Louis

The Gateway Arch is truly breathtaking – we rolled into town on Route66 from the east in torrential rain and it framed the view of the city and the storm across the river – from downtown it dominates your attention and anchors everything.

When you enter the underground visitor gallery you are surrounded by projections and pictures that celebrate the arch as a product of the 60s construction – when Kennedy was sending us to the moon and Martin Luther King had a dream; the boldness and energy of a confident America.

But the thinking and impetus for this project dates back to the Depression and the design competition was started when World War II was not yet over. This makes the result even more compelling. The initial commitment was sealed with appropriations signed by FDR in the 1930s from the same WPA job creating funds that built Timberline Lodge and paid for Woody Guthrie. The design competition was started in 1944 and awarded in 1947 to the Finnish-American architect Earo Saarinen. Imagine the reaction to a building whose design was a hyperbolic cosine function when people were driving Grapes of Wrath era Hudsons.

The trip to the top is in a small oval capsule where you might meet Jodie Foster in the movie “Contact” and the slit windows are angled to deliver perfect views from 630 feet.

The project did not create anything like the promised 5000 jobs but the revitalization of the city has been estimated to generate $500M of other new construction. Who wouldn’t want their hotel or stadium or office under or near this staggering symbol.

Photos: The Gateway Arch and the Old Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis from my hotel window – Loved being able to see the quality of the welds in the stainless steel outer skin – shadow of the arch across downtown St.. Louis – the Soviet looking bas relief mural celebrating the builders of the arch.

Finally the mathematical expression of the building “where f_c = 625.0925 ft (191 m) is the maximum height of centroid, Q_b = 1,262.6651 sq ft (117 m²) is the maximum cross sectional area of arch at base, Q_t = 125.1406 sq ft (12 m²) is the minimum cross sectional area of arch at top, and L = 299.2239 ft (91 m) is the half width of centroid at the base. The triangular cross sectional area varies linearly with the vertical height of its centroid.” 

Obvious.