Hasta La Ideas

Back in early February, we told you that a shortlist of architects had been selected for the Framing a Modern Masterpiece project that was created to reconstruct and revitalize the bland area around St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. The shortlist has now been paired down to five teams (PDF) and in a surprising move, gone are several of the big name starchitects who were among the initial nine selected. No longer there are Steven Holl, HOK, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro. There are still plenty of hot shots in there (Norman Foster and Skidmore Owings & Merrill have stuck around), but it seems like a positive move that the lesser-known groups didn’t immediately get the axe in favor of the marquee names. Here are the final five, who have until August 17th to prepare their plans before they’re publicly exhibited:

Behnisch Team led by Behnisch Architekten
MVVA Team led by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
PWP Landscape Architecture, Foster + Partners, Civitas
SOM, Hargreaves, BIG
Weiss/Manfredi, Architecture/Site Design/Urbanism

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