It all began with a journey...now, now please don't wonder too much...nothing much really happened, I just have a flair for drama.... prolly Bollywood effect....can't really say.
So, anyway, the arch....
It was basically a monument built to honor the pioneers responsible for westward expansion and in fact, a competition was held to design a monument at St Louis and the architect Eero Saarinen won it. The structure is an inverted catenary which used the hyperbolic cosine function: y = k cosh(x/k) where cosh(x) = (ex + e-x)/2.
So, we had basically planned on just going to the airport to pick up my cousin from the airport but the flight was delayed and so my uncle and I decided to make a detour and have a glimpse of this magnificent structure. All of 630 feet, this monument is imposing at its worst and gazing at it in the starlit nights at 10 pm was really unbelievable. Situated on the banks of the Mississippi, it bids a welcome to everyone at St Louis and the intriguing lighting makes it awe inspiring and makes you remember the times when this region was a mere channel from the east to the west and how much progress has been made by the people over several generations to make the mid west region a place to reckon and having an entity of its own.
The last glimpse of the enormous structure had me craning my neck and looking backwards to keep gazing at it and i plan to go again and have more than a fleeting view but one thing is a fact: St louis without the arch is not remotely complete.
PS: It actually looks like the photo I put up, even though I did not take this one!
