The Answer to Kamin’s Critique: Chicago Architecture Critic Blair Kamin Visits the Arch

{more than 50,000 cars and thousands of pedestrians use Michigan Avenue daily at this point adjacent to Millennium Park}

Chicago architecture and urban planning critic Blair Kamin recently took a stroll around the St. Louis Arch grounds. His take: "the experience is decidedly imperfect...clunky security barriers...access to disabled people is woefully inadequate...very little thought was given in the original contest to how pedestrians would get to the site...If I had remembered that the Arch has an underground Museum of Westward Expansion, I might have dragged (my son) in. But there was no sign calling attention to it...a food stand is an obvious addition..." Of course this is just "a quick summary of the challenges facing the design teams in the Arch competition.