Five teams advance to design phase of St. Louis Gateway Arch competition
Five teams have been selected to advance to the design phase of the international competition to reinvigorate the area around the Gateway Arch and connect it to downtown St. Louis, the Mississippi River and the Illinois bank, it was announced today.
The leaders of the design teams entering the third and final stage of the competition are:
“¢ Behnisch Team led by Behnisch Architekten – Stuttgart, Germany, Los Angeles
“¢ MVVA Team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates – New York City
“¢ PWP Landscape Architecture, Foster + Partners, Civitas – Berkeley, Calif.
“¢ SOM, Hargreaves, BIG – Chicago
“¢ Weiss/Manfredi, Architecture/Site Design/Urbanism – New York
The goal of The City + The Arch + The River international design competition is to create an iconic setting for the international icon, the Gateway Arch, honoring its immediate surroundings and weaving connections and transitions from the city and the Arch grounds to the Mississippi River, including the east bank in Illinois.
The competition, launched Dec. 8, 2009, has three stages. Portfolio submissions in Stage I included a description of the lead designer, a statement of design intent and philosophy of the lead designer, a profile of the design team and examples of their work. Stage II involved the formation of the complete teams capable of executing the project, submission of required qualifications and a jury interview. This phase culminated today, with the narrowing of the field to five teams. The “Meet the Design Teams” evening will include these teams. Stage III, which starts now, includes a three month design concept
“The goal of the first two steps of the process was to identify design teams with the talent, capacity and commitment to create thoughtful design solutions addressing the complex issues of the site and its relationship to the city, the river and the Illinois side. With this selection, that goal has been accomplished,” said Competition Manager Donald J. Stastny, of StastnyBrun Architects. “The selected teams represent local, national and international perspective, and we look forward to working with
them over the next few months as their visions evolve and they create their designs.”
“Having this level of architectural, engineering and landscape design power focused on such a visible urban park is exciting,” said Tom Bradley, superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. “We are committed to incorporating our parks into the life of their surrounding communities. I look forward to seeing the designs in August.”
The five teams will begin now and work through the spring and summer on design concepts, which will be put on public exhibition on Aug. 17, 2010. Details will be provided closer to that date. The eight member jury – which counts a Pulitzer Prize”winning architecture critic, a professor in the humanities, a former deputy director of the National Park Service, a real estate economist, a museum curator, renowned architects and renowned landscape architects among its members – presented its decision to competition managers after meeting with the nine teams that competed in Stage II of the competition.
The final jury pick will be announced Sept. 24, 2010. The project will be constructed by Oct. 28, 2015, the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Arch.
