The Civic PORCH at Gateway Arch National Park reconnects the city to its riverfront on the Mississippi River to fully realize the potential of a democratic public landscape located at the base of Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch.

For decades, the Gateway Arch was severed from downtown by an interstate highway introduced late in the park's original design process, with connectivity further eroded by incremental growth. A 280-foot-wide land bridge now spans the highway, reintegrating the park and linking St. Louis’ Gateway Mall to the Mississippi River. The removal of a 1,600-car garage, once the primary park entrance point, allows for greater accessibility to the riverfront via trails and bikeways, but also opened up the opportunity to create a front door to the monument.

The Civic PORCH is defined by an arc of sky floating upon the landscape, its reflective presence extends the distant rivers glistening surface towards us, merging water, earth and sky.  This Civic PORCH is a dynamic composite of our surroundings, an emphatic statement of collective welcome as we circulate along the generous radial paths, slipping subtly beneath this thin layer of the earth. It is a place of gathering, discussion and active interchange, while at the center point, wrapped within our embracing movement, resides a unique place, a ‘circle of gathering’, a place of repose, conversation, contemplation and equanimity.

Directionality is of utmost importance to these two opposing entries, one leading you west to the formal portico of the historic Federal Courthouse of 1816 encumbered by its past, while the new entry, the Civic PORCH, leading you to the east, facing the rising sun and offering all who engage, the opportunity of re-evaluation, renewal and reaffirmation of founding principles.

MORE LINKS

Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates

Gateway Arch National Park

Gateway Arch Park Foundation

A Gateway to the West

BOOKS

"Gateway Arch: A Biography", Tracy Campbell, 2013, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0300169492

"The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and the Hard Hats Who Built the Gateway Arch", Jim Merkel, 2014, Reedy Press, ISBN ‎ 978-1681061535

"Gateway Arch: An Illustrated Timeline", John Guenther, 2023, Reedy Press, ISBN ‎ 978-1681064468