This plan covers just four pages of text and includes just five images. It’s simple in its clarity of the need and potential to create a western terminus to the Gateway Mall in downtown St. Louis. Forty-seven years later, there remains to effective terminus.
The Interstate planned to run north never materialized, and the city and state are set to remake the interchange once built to serve I-755. The area is now part of the NorthSide Regeneration effort. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is being transformed again, and the Mid-Century Busch Stadium, an integral component of the “modern city”, is long gone. Union Station is being redeveloped yet again.
Since 1969, plans have come and gone for the Gateway Mall. Planning for the area seemed to gain traction with the 2009 Gateway Mall Master Plan and community advisory board. That effort was simply deleted, ignored, bypassed with the focus on the Arch grounds and CityArchRiver. Two blocks of the mall were transformed into City Garden sculpture park, and the two blocks of Kiener Plaza are under construction now.
And so what will become of the rest Gateway Mall? Will it become a cohesive space?
Text from A Brief Proposal for Development of the Gateway Mall (1969):
Gateway Mall
The implementation of the concepts set forth in the winning design of the 1966 Gateway Mall competition is vital to achieving the full potential of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and
its relationship to Downtown St. Louis.
The importance of the Mall cannot be over-emphasized. It will integrate a magnificent Riverfront with the retail core, the Civic Center, Mill Creek Valley and the entire City. The Gateway Mall will form the most symbolic urban space in the entire metropolitan area and will be equal to any such design concept throughout the world.
In his book, Site Planning, Kevin Lynch states that, “In a site plan. . .we are dealing with total organization of space. . . This space is formed with buildings, earth, rock, water, plants and light. The criteria for visual success are first, that this space he imageable, i.e., well structured and vivid in form, endowed with a pervading sense of place. Second, it must be conceived as a sequential experience, rythmically organized, with contrast and variety, yet with strong continuity. Third, it must be meaningful: highly expressive of the nature, function and value of the place and the uses that occupy it.”
The concept of a formal mall can be illustrated by outstanding urban designs in Paris and Washington. D.C. The Gateway Mall proposal and its relationship to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial is not unlike the entrance to St. Peter’s Square in Rome where a formal narrow street explodes into the monumental square. This concept was used on a smaller scale in the pedestrian mall at Rockefeller Center in New York. This formal open space composition is bordered on each side by a continuous facade and has an open space terminus at one end, the skating rink, and a tall tower terminating the other end.
This type of balanced composition is needed to achieve the continuity of the Gateway Mall. The Open space and the Arch in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial provide an impressive eastern mall terminus, but as shown in the winning mall competition design, a western terminal element is also needed.
Terminus Site
The City Plan Commission has carefully studied City Block 6471 which was given to the City to be used for a public purpose. This is the site programmed for the terminus. A major element at this point will provide continuity to the mall, as well as create a major entrance into Downtown St. Louis.
The site itself is triangular in shape and includes approximately two-thirds of an acre fretting nearly 100 feet on Twentieth Street and over 300 feet on Market Street. The site is relatively flat with a gentle slope towards the east. The ramps to U.S. 40 and IR 755 are west and north of the site, and the famous Milles Fountain in Aloe Plaza is immediately to the east.
Terminal Development
The winning design of the 1966 Mall Competition by Sasaki, Dawson and DeMay proposes a major structure located on the subject site and stretching across Market Street on the south and the expressway entrance ramps on the north. The City Plan Commission recognized the merits of this proposal; however. at the same time it is realized that such a terminus element may not be feasible in the near future. For this reason. the proposed site development is divided into three stages.
The first stage could be easily implemented in the immediate future. This stage includes development of a public open space having a composition of tall free standing sculptural elements serving as a terminus to the mall. A depressed pedestrian plaza or reflecting pool could be a part of this overall design.
The placement of these elements would permit erection of a high rise public structure as part of the second stage site development. The proposed public building, approximately 150 feet in height would become a powerful terminal element and be linked to Aloe Plaza by the first stage sculptural grouping.
The final third stage, when feasible, would include utilization of the air rights over Market Street and the ramps of U.S. 40 and IR 755. Elevated pedestrian links to possible future development north of the expressway ramps and south of Market Street would not only emphasize the termination of the mall. but would also provide a definition and entrance into the Central Business District.
The development of the terminal site as well as all blocks facing the mall must be designed as integrated elements, contributing to the power of this public open space – the Gateway Mall. The western terminal element is an essential part of this total design concept, and as proposed it would elegantly define this
important public space.
Original scanned document sourced from Open Archive STL
