Scaled Down, Down, Down: Next Arch Grounds Revision Likely to Offer Less

For anyone following the Arch grounds project, the reality that the winning design (itself much less ambitious than other finalists) was being scaled back in significant ways isn't news. That some elements will not be completed by 2015 has long been stated on nextSTL. So yesterday's apparent gaffe by the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial superintendent may be noteworthy, but isn't surprising, "On January 24th we're going to go back to the public and tell you where we are today. You're going to see a scaled down, leaner project."

But that's not the problem, the real issue with the ongoing Arch grounds revitalization effort is a mismatch of expectations. That the end result may fail to excite the urbanist dreamers amongst us (me included), isn't entirely our own fault. An international landscape architecture competition was meant to raise the profile of the endeavor. It did. The competition was meant to attract the best talent from around the world. It did. All competition caveats aside, when Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates was named the design winner, people expected something transformative.