So that’s that. Only it isn’t.
It was announced Tuesday that Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates proposal for work at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial had won the jury’s decision and would be announced as the winner of the City+Arch+River 2015 Competition.
The jury report states that the MVVA team is “strong [with a] solid methodology” and that “they convey intelligence and provide clear technical support for their design proposals.”
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates work is prominent, diverse and contemporary. They have built in cosmopolitan settings like Manhattan and Cambridge, as well as in areas predominantly off the beaten path, like Stoneham, ME and San Juan Island, WA.
But are they the right choice to redesign our hallowed Arch grounds?
The answer is emphatically yes.
Before we go much further with the winning scheme, if we first allow ourselves, as residents of St. Louis and as stewards of the great Arch and Memorial grounds, the luxury of taking a step back to examine all five of the finalist’s entries, one thing ought to become apparent; all the proposals were wonderful.
What a treat it was for us to imagine the face of our city framed by such an inspired array of embellishments. The plans vacillated wildly, from whimsy to pragmatism, from outrageous to restrained and from visionary to sedate.
And how terrifically novel it has been to find ourselves so engaged in the proceedings surrounding our nearly 50-year old monument. Before this summer, when was the last time you discussed the Arch while at work? Can you remember the last time you argued about the Arch?
It is important recognize that we have been teetering in a kind of threshold since the finalists were announced, and while we have been privileged to witness this competition at such close proximity, let’s not forget that in the end only one was chosen.
Furthermore, we will have to live with the physical consequences of the selected proposal for a long, long time to come. Until this week, we could only hope that the jury had our best interest in mind.
As it turns out, they did. The jury, which conspicuously did not feature a single St. Louis designer, critic or resident, chose for our city an exciting scheme that is equal parts progressive and referential.
Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates’ work ranges from dramatic and attention-grabbing to quietly elegant and understated, but it is consistently scaled to us, its eventual users and inhabitants, and always seems to keep in mind that a project without people milling about is simply a static concept, little more than a 1:1 scale model.
We don’t have to venture very far to see a wonderful example of his constructed design. Built over the last year and completed mid-spring, the new plaza on the BJC HealthCare and Washington University Medical School campus is an example of the kind of sensitivities and insights the MVVA team bring to a project. Designed in conjunction with Maya Lin, this garden provides a flourishing sense of place to an area that was once strictly a back-of-house concrete court. Addressing the need to escape the purely sterile, rigid confines of interior waiting rooms, operating rooms, lecture halls and recovery suites, MVVA planted lushly striated landscapes. Brimming with native plants that frame meandering paths and an infinity pool, the plaza serves as a contrasting natural refuge for doctors and patients alike.
Likewise, though operating on a much larger scale, the scheme for the Arch grounds is richly varied. It includes a new west-facing entrance to the underground Museum of Western Expansion, new paved and mowed paths that wend throughout the grounds and pavilions and activity centers (like an ice-skating rink and a beer garden) which attempt to bridge the gap between the Arch grounds and the adjacent neighborhoods.
Furthermore, MVVA has capped part of I-70 in an effort to create a seamless link between the business district and the Arch grounds. Despite the fact that the grounds run for roughly a dozen city blocks, the overpass deck spans only the block from Chestnut to Market, at the foot of the Old Courthouse, but it is a critical step toward reconnecting the two disconnected pieces of our downtown.
Ultimately, instead of competing for attention or attempting to steal the spotlight from the Arch and its surrounding grounds, MVVA’s proposal will enrich and redefine what it means to spend time there. It seems to gladly shine the light back toward the original work of Saarinen and Kiley while setting a new framework for us to enjoy the monument and park freshly and in a very contemporary way.
It’s exciting, right? As anyone who has followed a design competition knows, this plan will undoubtedly change as various financial, social and political pressures push and pull on its architectural forms and massive landscaping scope, but a strong scheme is designed to be somewhat malleable and when its core scaffolding is conceptually rich, relatively minor alterations won’t effect the potential for a stunning reinterpretation of a very familiar place.
And isn’t that what we wanted all along?
Brian Newman is currently a practicing architectural designer, a contributor to The Architect's Newspaper and an adjunct faculty member of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis where he teaches graphic and representational strategies.
