With its next cover (8 Dec 2014), The New Yorker is addressing the tragic unrest in Ferguson following a grand jury’s refusal this week to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, in August. The New Yorker show us an image of Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch, designed by Bob Staake, with the arch divided in two colors, black and white, in reference to the racial tensions.
In architecture history, the end of modernity was marked by theorist and critic Charles Jencks, when in 1972 there was the demolition of the Pruitt Igoe district of the city. The Gateway Arch, a 630-foot homage to western expansion, is a St. Louis landmark visited by millions of tourists.
"I wanted to comment on the tragic rift that we’re witnessing," Bob Staake says about his cover for the December 8th issue, arriving next week. "I lived in St. Louis for seventeen years before moving to Massachusetts, so watching the news right now breaks my heart. At first glance, one might see a representation of the Gateway Arch as split and divided, but my hope is that the events in Ferguson will provide a bridge and an opportunity for the city, and also for the country, to learn and come together."
More information in The New Yorker’s website.
