The Gateway Arch: Gateway To The West

The Gateway Arch: Gateway to the West

When traveling on I-70 into the city limits of St. Louis, Missouri one thing stands out more than others; the Gateway Arch. Whether enjoying a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium or visiting the zoo, one can't miss the arch. "The soaring arch dominates the landscape in every direction. It is the focal point of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial." (Coyle, 1966). Saint Louis's Gateway Arch has three major points of interest: it is the tallest monument in North America, it signifies the gateway to the west, and its unique design attracts tourists from all over the world.

The arch was to span a height of six hundred and thirty feet tall (Meyerowitz, 1980). The Gateway Arch is the tallest National Monument (Cosby, R. & Cosby, J., 1997). Standing only three feet tall, it would take seventeen Liberty Bell monuments's to comprise one ground level section of the arch. In New York, the Statue of Liberty stands approximately a mere one hundred and fifty-one feet tall. The Gateway Arch even towers over the Washington Monument by approximately seventy-five feet. The arch's height enabled traveler's to know that they were approaching the "Gateway to the West" from some distance away.

The Gateway Arch gets its name from the slogan "Gateway to the West." Pierre Laclede established a trading post in 1764 on the very same spot the arch now stands.

This post became a departure point for fur traders and explorers who played a key part in the westward movement. Not only did the Gateway Arch serve as the Gateway to the West it signified western expansion following the Louisiana Purchase; therefore the arch has became a unique symbol of the city itself (McCue & Peters, 1989).

In 1948 it was Eero Saarinen, a Finnish-American architect who won first prize in the contest for the design of the arch. Fourteen years later on June 17, 1962 construction of the foundation on the arch began. Only Saarinen's visionary design, a stainless steel arch leaping out of a forest along the banks of the Mississippi river, carried the message of the future, both in form and material (Meyerowitz, 1980). The arch is a simple shape that was inverted to form a three-sided catenary curve shifting upward to form an arch. The weight and thrust of the arch passes through the lower portion of the legs and is absorbed into the foundation, making it strong enough to sway no more than eighteen inches in a one-hundred and fifty mile per hour wind (Meyerowitz, 1989). Approximately 26,000 tons of concrete was used in making the foundation, sixty feet of which is below ground. The arch's curvature began to present problems after towering out of ground crane's reach. A new technique was conceived