The arch is such a powerful symbol in an abstract way of why the country expanded to the west, in the way that it straddles and marks the line between the sky and the earth and draws our attention to the Big Sky country that lies beyond. The idea that there was ample opportunity to claim land and transform their lives in that way.

I put the arch in the genre of these kind of huge iconographic structures, which are great works of engineering and architecture at the same time, throw it in with the Eiffel Tower, and the Ferris Wheel and the St. Louis Arch.