Museum Campus Loop

The Museum Campus Loop at Gateway Arch National Park circles the recently renovated grounds above and around the underground museum at the arch's base, revealing the thoughtful landscape design that transformed a 1960s-era concrete plaza into a park-like campus with native plantings, accessible pathways, and integrated viewpoints. The 2018 renovation by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates reconnected the arch grounds to the St. Louis street grid for the first time in decades, eliminating the elevated highway that had severed the riverfront from the downtown core.

The loop provides multiple angles on the arch from ground level, each revealing different aspects of the geometry: from directly below, the legs appear to converge impossibly far above; from the sides, the catenary curve of each leg becomes visible as a mathematical elegance translated into stainless steel. Native prairie plantings — grasses, coneflowers, and goldenrod — fill the groundplane around the arch legs, replacing the sterile lawn of the original Saarinen design with ecologically appropriate ground cover. The tram to the arch observation deck — a unique ride in specially designed egg-shaped pods that rotate to maintain level as the tram climbs the curved interior of the leg — can be accessed from the museum below the campus grounds. Tram tickets sell out quickly; advance purchase online is strongly recommended.