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
Museums | Jul 29, 2019
A new museum debuts inside the Empire State Building
A $165 million, 10,000-sf museum opened on the second floor of the Empire State Building in New York City, completing the second of a four-phase “reimagining” of that building’s observatory experience, which draws four million visitors annually.
Museums | Jul 22, 2019
Berlin’s Museum Island receives its first new building in almost 100 years
David Chipperfield Architects designed the building.
Museums | Jun 28, 2019
OMA unveils design for New Museum's second gallery building
The building is being designed by Office for Metropolitan Architecture/Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson.
Museums | Jun 18, 2019
Frank Lloyd Wright Trust announces new Visitor and Education Center
Architect John Ronan will design the building.
Museums | May 15, 2019
The new Statue of Liberty Museum in New York seeks to educate and inspire
This LEED-Gold building features three exhibit spaces that give visitors more access to and engagement with the statue’s history.
Museums | May 10, 2019
Lincoln Park Zoo announces renovation plans and design for the Kovler Lion House
Construction will begin in fall 2019.
Museums | Feb 27, 2019
Seoul’s Robot Science Museum will be built by robots
Robots will be in charge of jobs such as molding, welding, and polishing metal plates for the museum’s façade, and 3D printing concrete.
Museums | Feb 22, 2019
The National Museum of Qatar takes its design from the desert rose
Jean Nouvel designed the museum.
Museums | Jan 16, 2019
Disused British airfield to become an automotive museum
Foster + Partners is designing the facility.
