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Discuss “How Things Work: The Gateway Arch”

The Gateway Arch, 630 feet tall and another 630 feet wide, is an elegant frame to the historic city of St. Louis. A gigantic endeavor in its time, the arch is almost 100 feet taller than the Washington Monument and more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty. It contains over 5000 tons of steel and nearly 40,000 tons of concrete.

In 1935, the United States government sanctioned the riverfront location of the arch, officially known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. The initiative accrued about 40 blocks worth of city space, but the project sank into a 12-year hiatus in the chaos of the Second World War.

Memorial plans resurfaced in 1947, when architect Eero Saarinen won a countrywide competition for its design. His proposal,...

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