Then we came back to the thought that placing it on the west bank was not bad at all. Maybe the arch should be parallel with the levee but placed right in the Mississippi. “No, there seemed to be enough bridges and placing a symbolic bridge between two useful bridges didn’t seem right. At one point, he considered placing one leg on each bank of the river to symbolically link east and west. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 7, 1948, Saarinen described his thinking process, which involved using pipe cleaners to form arches of various sizes. The Park Service balked at the inside because of the cost, but that was the original idea – that the Arch would be completely made of stainless steel,’’ Moore said. “He wanted to use stainless steel on the outside and inside of the Arch. This entry by George Matsumoto featured a bronze sculpture depicting the signing of the Louisiana Purchase set under an arch-like structure on the riverfront. I see that my secretary addressed the telegram to your father instead of to you, having taken his name from your letterhead. It is signed by competition adviser George Howe and includes this postscript: “p.s. They were happy first for the father and then for the son.’’Ī copy of the letter sent to Eero Saarinen afterward is filed with competition correspondence in the Park Service archives. The Saarinens apparently took the mix-up in stride, Moore said. In an unfortunate bit of confusion, the congratulatory telegram announcing the first-round success was sent to Eliel by mistake. Eliel also entered the competition, but his entry was eliminated in the first round. The semifinalists were each awarded $10,000 and invited to revise their designs for the second round of competition that would be decided in February 1948.Īt the time of the competition, Eero Saarinen, 38, worked for his father Eliel Saarinen, a well-known architect who led the Cranbrook Institute of Architecture and Design near Detroit. The jurors deliberated for four days, eventually agreeing on five designs. (Some illustrations in this story highlight sections of the complete drawingboards.) Moore said that each entry consisted of two boards - one showing a plan and elevation view and the other showing a prospective view or vignettes of what it would look like. Others don’t seem to embody the ideas of the memorial - that Saarinen’s did - of being a gateway.’’Įntry from Frank Weise, Brewster Adams and Gyo Obata. “One looks like a giant outdoor movie screen. “And then some, well, it’s hard to fathom what they were thinking,’’ Moore said. Others suggested forms reminiscent of well-known monuments around the world. Some of the architects included big statuary of Thomas Jefferson, pioneers, American Indians and buffalo. Louis a campfire theater where park rangers could give programs restaurants, museums and possibly a helipad and port docking facility. The criteria called for an architectural memorial of some type reproductions of the types of buildings found in Old St. Moore says they were, in fact, meeting the competition’s guidelines, which required that certain elements be incorporated into the design. While Saarinen went BIG with his arch, many of the architects kept their eyes at ground level and focused on curious little elements like open-air campfire theaters and “villages” of French colonial houses. There Was Supposed To Be A Campfire Theater. In the meantime, here are five things you might not know about the selection of the Arch design:ġ. The monument proposed by Eliel Saarinen, Eero's father, who also entered the competition.
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