A design team consisting of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Cooper Robertson, and James Carpenter Design Associates with Trivers Associates and Haley Sharpe Design won the international competition for the opportunity to expand and renovate the Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway Arch Museum in St. Louis.
The expanded Gateway Arch Museum, designed by Cooper Robertson and James Carpenter Design Associates, has a dramatic entrance and plaza that is nestled into the historic landscape. The design includes new public spaces, a great entry hall that leads to re-imagined exhibitions and the fully renovated original Saarinen building beneath the Arch.
Nearly 45,000 sf of new museum space has been added and over 100,000 sf of existing space has been reconfigured into new exhibition galleries, public education facilities, and visitor amenities. The new Gateway Arch Museum extends west towards downtown St. Louis with a new entrance and plaza that connects to the redesigned and expanded Luther Ely Smith Square, which now spans over a depressed interstate highway.
Rendering courtesy Cooper Robertson.
The museum’s public spaces and surroundings are fully integrated into the overall plan for the Dan Kiley-designed 91-acre Park. The Museum and Park now connect directly to the 1862 Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis.
“The Museum design is fully integrated into the National Register-listed landscape,” says Cooper Robertson’s Scott Newman, in a release. “The new entrance is precisely inserted into the topography, allowing visitors to enter the building through the landscape rather than descending underground. As one enters, a luminous great hall is revealed with views deep into the Museum’s monumentally scaled exhibits below, elevating and enlivening the visitor experience, while respecting Dan Kiley’s original Park design.”
According to the Gateway Arch Park Foundation, the nonprofit group behind the project, one of the main goals of the renovation and expansion is to create closer and more robust connections between the Gateway Arch Museum, the landscape of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and the city of St. Louis as a whole.
McCarthy Building Companies is the general contractor for the project.
The Museum will open to the public this year with an official dedication ceremony planned for July 2018.
UPdate
EarthCam has released a new time-lapse video showing the construction of the Gateway Arch Museum project. The one minute video shows the construction of the museum between February 2014 and March 2018.
Courtesy EarthCam.
Related Stories
| Jul 29, 2013
2013 Giants 300 Report
The editors of Building Design+Construction magazine present the findings of the annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry.
| Jul 26, 2013
How biomimicry inspired the design of the San Francisco Museum at the Mint
When the city was founded in the 19th century, the San Francisco Bay’s edge and marshland area were just a few hundred feet from where the historic Old Mint building sits today. HOK's design team suggested a design idea that incorporates lessons from the local biome while creating new ways to collect and store water.
| Jul 22, 2013
Cultural Facility Report [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Building Design+Construction's rankings of design and construction firms with the most revenue from cultural facility projects, as reported in the 2013 Giants 300 Report.
| Jul 19, 2013
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2013 Giants 300 Report]
URS, STV, Wiss Janney Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2013 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 19, 2013
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HOK, HDR top Building Design+Construction's 2013 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 19, 2013
Renovation, adaptive reuse stay strong, providing fertile ground for growth [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Increasingly, owners recognize that existing buildings represent a considerable resource in embodied energy, which can often be leveraged for lower front-end costs and a faster turnaround than new construction.
| Jul 2, 2013
LEED v4 gets green light, will launch this fall
The U.S. Green Building Council membership has voted to adopt LEED v4, the next update to the world’s premier green building rating system.
| Jul 1, 2013
Report: Global construction market to reach $15 trillion by 2025
A new report released today forecasts the volume of construction output will grow by more than 70% to $15 trillion worldwide by 2025.
| Jun 28, 2013
Building owners cite BIM/VDC as 'most exciting trend' in facilities management, says Mortenson report
A recent survey of more than 60 building owners and facility management professionals by Mortenson Construction shows that BIM/VDC is top of mind among owner professionals.
| Jun 25, 2013
Mirvish, Gehry revise plans for triad of Toronto towers
A trio of mixed-use towers planned for an urban redevelopment project in Toronto has been redesigned by planners David Mirvish and Frank Gehry. The plan was announced last October but has recently been substantially revised.
