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‘Gateway Arch’

By Kim Ae-ran The author is a member of the Daughters of St. Paul. When available, please feel free to visit her blog, “A piece of sunshine,” at mtorchid88. blogspot.com.

In the beginning, everyone in the world used the same language. So, it was easy for people to agree and to build “a city and a tower with its top in the sky.” But God knew their intentions and confused their speech. As a result, they were scattered over the earth.

Constructing something big, tall or long might be quite an adventurous challenge to try. For various reasons, people keep building something different and new.

Not only the United States but other countries such as United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Russia, Vietnam, Kuwait and Indonesia have built lofty skyscrapers.

In Missouri, there is another type of skyscraper called the Gateway Arch. Among 400 national parks in the U.S., the Gateway Arch National Park is a must -see because of the arch, which stands at 630 feet. Its height and base width are all 630 feet.

In order to arrive at the top of the Gateway Arch, we had to take a tram ride to its observation deck. Thanks to the Book Club members who recently visited our community in St. Louis, I could go up to the top of the Gateway Arch.

The Gateway Arch, designed to sway up to 18 inches in high winds or during an earthquake, is a renowned architecture masterpiece built on the banks of the Mississippi River. Rising from a forested park, the Gateway Arch, located in the middle of the U.S., is a part of the national historic site created in 1935 to commemorate the role of St. Louis in westward expansion.

Founded as a French fur trading post in 1764, St. Louis prospered because of its central location. Naturally, it grew as an economic and manufacturing center. It is a city where the European newcomers participated in travel and trade networks that American Indians had used for centuries.

In 1947, a national competition challenged architects to design a memorial to evoke the scale and drama of the nation’s westward expansion. Among 172 proposals, the judges chose the Arch of Eero Saarinen (1910-1961), an architect and industrial designer emigrated to the U.S. in 1923 from Finland.

Just to create the memorial, 40 blocks of old buildings were leveled in the downtown area. The structure of the Gateway Arch, built between 1963 and 1965, is of stainless steel on the outside, carbon steel on the inside and concrete in the middle. The Arch combined engineering, materials and technology to create the iconic and daring structure. In this way, the planning team of the tried to express their American identity.

Whenever I pass by the Gateway Arch along the streets, its height reminds me of our constant longing to go beyond our human limits. In Genesis 28:10-21, Jacob, in his dream, saw the stairway stretching from heaven to earth, with Angels going up and down on it… Would that ladder lead us to the spiritual heaven? Would the tallest arch or tower let us feel proud of ourselves and give us true happiness? What kind of ladder do I now climb to reach the spiritual virtues?

Opinion

en-kr

2023-03-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-30T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://ktimes.pressreader.com/article/281775633417185

The Korea Times Co.