Fascinating how the Gateway Arch's completion in '65 sparked this idea for movable arches. Kansas City was essentially trying to one-up St. Louis by making theirs functional, not just symbolic. The engineering ambition was wild considering NASA couldn't even guarnatee moon landings yet. Sometimes the best infrastructure decisoins are the ones not made, especially when you compare those open-air stadiums to the maintenance nightmares multipurpose domes became.
I didn't mean to suggest the Gateway Arch directly impacted the Kansas City design as much as it was a prominent new feature of the rival city on the other side of the state. Arches were a prominent architectural feature of the time.
I have not been there, but like Toronto's Rogers Centre, Milwaukee's field and others, Seattle has a retractable roof, not one that cover the stadium and rolls over it.
Fascinating how the Gateway Arch's completion in '65 sparked this idea for movable arches. Kansas City was essentially trying to one-up St. Louis by making theirs functional, not just symbolic. The engineering ambition was wild considering NASA couldn't even guarnatee moon landings yet. Sometimes the best infrastructure decisoins are the ones not made, especially when you compare those open-air stadiums to the maintenance nightmares multipurpose domes became.
I didn't mean to suggest the Gateway Arch directly impacted the Kansas City design as much as it was a prominent new feature of the rival city on the other side of the state. Arches were a prominent architectural feature of the time.
Have you never been to Seattle? The baseball stadium has a rolling roof
I have not been there, but like Toronto's Rogers Centre, Milwaukee's field and others, Seattle has a retractable roof, not one that cover the stadium and rolls over it.