Weiss/Manfredi's ‘Full Circle' Is a Finalist for "Framing a Modern Masterpiece": an International Design Competition

Weiss/Manfredi leads one of five teams selected in The City + The Arch + The River, an invited international design competition to reimagine the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, the setting for Eero Saarinen's iconic Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

Full Circle reconnects the city to the park and the park to the river, embracing the Mississippi River as its center. The monumental civic axis of St. Louis is extended over the highway to connect the city to the park. Strategic improvements to the memorial grounds will preserve this modernist icon. The expanded museum will act as a catalyst to bridge history and community, culture and ecology, integrating the site into a larger cultural network of the St. Louis region. The East St. Louis riverbank offers a dramatic contrast to the modernist icon created by Saarinen and Kiley. Here the landscape is redefined as a network of new earthworks, waterways, and paths that meander to reach new settings for recreation and public life including the new river center and ecological park that restores the lost river ecologies. New connections between St. Louis and East St. Louis complete the loop. Eads Bridge hosts a new linear park and the piers of Poplar Street Bridge are leveraged to support a new pedestrian and bike loop. Full Circle recovers narratives of culture, ecology, transportation, and trade to create one continuous experience.

Selected from 49 internationally renowned teams, the Weiss/Manfredi Team is composed of a multi-disciplinary group of consultants including artist Mark Dion, Magnusson Klemencic Associates, SWT Design, D.I.R.T. studio, Green Shield Ecology, Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP, HR&A Advisors.

Other teams include Behnisch Architeckten, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates + Steven Holl Architects, Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architecture + Foster and Partners + Civitas, and SOM + Hargreaves + BIG.

http://www.cityarchrivercompetition.org/competition/finalists/weiss-manfredi-team/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQKRmLJQQL0&feature=player_embedded