Gateway to the West

The Gateway to the West

“I think the Arch is a perfect symbol of westward expansion because it’s the American spirit of being able to accomplish the impossible.” This is a quote by Christine Ely Smith, granddaughter of Luther Ely Smith, who thought of the idea for a monument in St. Louis. I think this is a great way of describing the arch and what it has brought to America. The Arch was the start of the Jefferson National Expansion Movement and was made to commemorate several important events: the Louisiana Purchase, the first civil government West of the Mississippi River, and the debate over slavery. Luther Ely Smith saw what was happening to the city because of the Depression and wanted to bring it back to its former glory. He came up with the idea of a monument that would be honored after Thomas Jefferson because he was one of the most popular presidents and Smith believed he could get federal money to honor him. A contest was held for people to design a monument and the winner was Eero Saarinen, a Finnish-American whose design was a huge steel arch rising out of the landscape at the edge of the water. As one of the most ambitious engineering and construction projects of its time, the Arch, known as the Gateway to the West, forever revolutionized architecture as an art for the future of America. The architect who thought up this beautiful design was Eero Saarinen.

Eero Saarinen was the son of the well-known architect Eliel Saarinen. Young Saarinen started sculpture in Paris and architecture at Yale, a four-year program that he completed in only three years. After college he began work at his father’s architectural firm. Eero Saarinen and his father both entered into the contest to make a monument. The winner of the contest was someone unexpected. It was the son, Eero, who won not the father who everybody believed would be the winner. Eero called the winning entry “The Gateway to the West” and from that point on the phrase would be forever synonymous with the city of St. Louis. The arch is an amazing accomplishment architecturally and structurally. This design would initiate the most ambitious engineering and construction project of the time.

Eero Saarinen made an arch to signify an entryway. This is an entryway into a new and better America. One of the reasons Eero Saarinen’s design won was because it seemed so impossible it make and it was so out of the ordinary. It would dominate the entire city. This design would be the most ambitious engineering and construction project of its time. Saarinen described his monument as, “a triangular ribbon of beauty and permanence, floating in the air.”

A new type of engineering called orthotropic design allowed the Arch to be built without using an internal steel skeleton. The outside walls would support it. It also allowed room inside the structure for an observation area, and room within the legs of the Arch to transport visitors to it. Construction of the arch began on February 12, 1963, and was finished on October 28, 1965. It was opened to the public on July 24, 1967 (after one of the trams was completed). It cost about 13 million dollars to build, which would be about 108 million dollars today. The two bases are equilateral triangles (triangles with three 54 foot-long sides). At the top of the arch, the triangle is only 17 feet long on each side. The arch has 60-foot deep foundations. The arch is very stable and was built to withstand high winds and earthquakes. The structure sways about one inch in a 20 mph wind; it is designed to sway up to 18 inches in 150 mile per hour winds. All of the visitors enter the arch by way of an underground visitor's center, and can then travel to the observation deck at the top in a 40 passenger tram, that runs inside the arch. This tram is made like a roller coaster.