Statue of Malcolm Martin Gazing Across the River
Malcolm Martin Gazing Across the River
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Tag Archives: The Arch
Eero Saarinen
Knoll Armchair, Designed by Eero Saarinen
It is always a bit disconcerting to see something familiar, in an unexpected setting, like an everyday object in a museum. I’m not speaking of some nameless village’s cabinet of curiosities, but a real museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum. It is a beautiful object, so to call it everyday is demeaning, better to call it familiar. My mom purchased four of these chairs, for her dining room set. I’ve sat in them for countless meals. Not only do they look good, they’re comfortable too. Rather than disconcerting, I think that she would find it comforting to hear that her chairs are in our art museum. It would be a vindication of her good taste. Me seeing this chair in the museum, was a reminder of her.
The following is an excerpt from the museum’s writeup.
Architect Eero Saarinen’s sleek, sculptural design is an icon of 20th-century furniture. Prior to World War II, he collaborated with Charles Eames on designs for organic furniture using bentwood. Following the war, Saarinen’s furniture designs employed new materials like plastic to achieve a modern form. This chair’s one-piece base was designed to replace the visual clutter of traditional furniture. In Saarinen’s words, “The undercarriage of chairs and tables in a typical interior makes an ugly, confusing, unrestful world. I wanted to cleat up the slum of legs. I wanted to make the chair all one thing again.”
Eero Saarinen, doesn’t he have some other art work around town? I think it is a sculpture piece. It will come to me. 😉
Documentation
I watched the PBS series on Prohibition this week. Anne watched it too, but sometimes with her eyes closed. Ken Burns, the main documentarian, went to the same high school that Anne and I did. He graduated the year before us. His brother Ric, his collaborator on many films, graduated the year after we did, and my brother Chris and Anne’s sister Jay graduated the year after that. Such is the extent of my connection to this famous family. I liked “Prohibition”, which got me to thinking, what my family’s connection to this period was. Anne’s mother’s family grew up a stone’s throw from the Canadian border, so as children, instead of playing cops and robbers, they played rum runners and revenuers. When the Cabin’s outhouse had to be moved, because it was full, various liquor bottles were found in the hole, but I don’t know if they date back to prohibition. Yes dear friends, there will be no ounce of night soil left unturned in the pursuit of this blog. I asked my Dad, if he had stories about Prohibition or knew any stories that Mom might have told. This is what he had to say:
Yes, your great-grandfather (Mom’s mother’s father) was a lobsterman out of New Bedford. Well, any kind of fishing is hard work so he decided to try his hand at a little bit of rum running. He could see out beyond the three-mile limit ships that were sort of floating supermarkets for booze. They would sell to anyone who could get out there and he had a boat. So out he went, filled the hold of his boat and returned to the pier in New Bedford to unload. Unfortunately, the revenuers got wind of his enterprise and closed in on him. He spotted them and ran away. He wasn’t arrested, but he lost his boat.
I don’t know any stories about my father’s side of the family but on my mother’s side, in West Virginia, where she was born and grew up moon shining and brewing white lightning came as natural as breathing. These were the same people who caused the whiskey rebellion during George Washington’s administration, so there is a long history there, but I don’t know any specific details.
So, while Anne’s family members were playing rum runners, some of my family members were rum runners. One of Burns’ points was that prohibition touched everyone. I guess that was true. I chose the picture of the Arch for this post, because another great documentarian, Charles Guggenheim, once produced a film about its making. It was nominated for an Academy Award in ‘67 and is still played daily, in the museum, beneath the Arch. Called “Monument to the Dream”, I found this YouTube video of its climatic final minutes, the capstone of the film. If you look closely at my picture of the Arch, you can see a line of rust forming along one of its welds. It is not an isolated flaw and is by no means the worst. The parks service is now studying what should be done to repair this damage. I anxiously await the arrival of whatever Arch crawling caterpillar of a device that is eventually set upon the wall, to expunge the rust from this stainless steel wonder. Wait, did you say stainless? How many ounces of silver could be wrought, if we just melted down the Arch? Does this blog make me a documentarian too, or just a fool on his own little soap box?
Framing a Modern Masterpiece
Last Tuesday, when Anne and I visited the Missouri History Museum to see their new exhibit of American Indian art, A Splendid Heritage, there was another new exhibit there too. Setup under the replica of the Spirit of Saint Louis was the traveling exhibit for the project: Framing a Modern Masterpiece – The City + The Arch + The River – 2015. This is the formal name for what is colloquially known as the plan to redesign the Arch’s grounds. The Arch or the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial as it is also more formally known has been around for fifty years. Its original landscaping plan was never fully implemented and frankly it is time for a few changes.
Framing a Modern Masterpiece is a five-year, $578M plan to improve and expand the Arch’s grounds. Earlier this year, the organization of, City + Arch + River chose a designer and a design and is now engaged in socializing their plan and garnering civic support for it. It already has federal, state (Missouri and Illinois) and municipal government support. Salient aspects of the improvement plan include more closely integrating the Arch and its grounds with the city of Saint Louis; increasing the footprint of the Arch by increasing the space within Saint Louis; and expanding and better connecting the Arch grounds on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. Here are a few of the particulars:
- Adding 16 acres of new park space on the Missouri side of the river; adding 50 acres of Illinois land as National Park and the potential for further land acquisitions; and 25 acres of landscape improvements on the Arch grounds.
- Covering of the I-70 expressway, which is now a moat between the Arch grounds and Saint Louis; adding 3.5 miles of new pedestrian pathways creating universal access across the project area; and building a mile long gondola ride from the south end of the Arch grounds to Illinois.
- The construction of a new 100,000 square-feet pavilion with shade canopy and animated fountain elements centered on the Illinois side Gateway Geyser; Replacing a 4 acre parking garage with community oriented landscape; and the addition of a carousel.
It is a broad, bold and free-ranging plan. It has many elements, more than I have mentioned here, but it is not funded yet. Funding will become the determining element of the future success of this plan. In these tight economic times, where government is retrenching, setting off on such a plan as this may seem almost foolhardy to some. Those that think so, don’t know Saint Louis.
Ten miles to the west of the Arch is the prototype for the Arch’s redevelopment plan. I’m speaking of Forest Park. In 1993, the beginning of $100+M was raised to redevelop Forest Park, the largest redevelopment fund for a municipal park. Both private and public money was raised in a near 50/50 split. Forest Park may be the crown jewel of Saint Louis, but the Arch is a monument of national significance. It casts a much wider net. This plan is the bi-state area’s next great challenge. I look forward to the day when we have risen to meet it.
The Saint Louis Arch
Children in Saint Louis have the word arch in their vocabulary, at an unsually early age …
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- The Arch
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- The Tom Sawyer under the Eads Bridge
We took Rey to see the Arch on Sunday. The Rams versus Colts game was just getting underway when we arrived downtown. Consequently, the Arch’s garage was charging $10 event parking. I eschewed that option and we parked down on the levee for only $4. The levee is paved with cobblestones. Anne recounted a story of an office Christmas party, years ago, that was held on one of the riverboats. She recounted her difficulty in trying to navigate these stones, while wearing heels and in the dark. The river was surprisingly high on Sunday, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. We walked up the front steps from the river to the Arch.
I guess that this was the first time that I have actually gone inside the Arch since 9/11. This time they had X-ray scanners and a metal detecting booth just like at the airport. Saturday was the forty-fourth anniversary of the Arch, but on Sunday things were pretty quiet. We got our tickets and were immediately assigned a tram car for our ride to the top of the Arch.
The tram cars are little egg shaped capsules that seat five. This one-part elevator and one-part amusement park ride alleviates the need to climb the 630’ via the 1,000 plus stairs that now serve solely as an emergency exit. There was another couple in our car as we rode up to the top. I think that the guy was feeling a little claustrophobic. I know Rey was feeling cramped. As you near your destination, where the Arch curves the most, the tram cars rotate increasingly more frequently to keep its occupants sitting level. If you are already nervous, it is an unnerving event.
The top of the Arch is a single room that can’t help but convey the inverted triangular shape of the exterior. Each side of the room is lined with small rectangular windows. On the west side lays Saint Louis. On the east side is the Mississippi and then Illinois. I’ve been up in the Arch when there was a stiff wind and you could feel the Arch swaying. Sunday though was not such a day. Eventually, we saw enough and took all the pictures we wanted to and rode down the other leg of the Arch. In this tram ride we had the car all to ourselves. Rey got to stretch out.
We killed the time in between the tram ride and the movie with a tour through the museum that lies underground beneath the Arch. The Arch is a national monument. It is officially known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. It commemorates the westward expansion of our country that occurred throughout the ninetieth century. It was situated in Saint Louis because of Saint Louis’ pivotal role as the Gateway to the West. Rey (naturally) found a new exhibit that describes Saint Louis’ contribution to the westward expansion of baseball.
The movie that we watched was, A Monument to a Dream. It is a short twenty-minute documentary film about the making of the Arch. In 1967 it was nominated for an Academy Award. Anne and I have seen it many times and we still love it.
We next adjourned from the Arch to neighboring Laclede’s landing for lunch. Once a warehouse district, it is now populated with restaurants and bars. We were seated and had placed our order before the waves of football fans began to arrive. Walking back to the car along the levee, we noticed that the water had risen further. So it was with some relief that we found the car still high and dry. All that was left was for us to slog home through football traffic.