The first thing that caught my attention at Citygarden was the sound: a hundred kids running through the spray plaza while a Tom Otterness bronze figure watched from a nearby ledge with the expression of someone who has seen everything and is perfectly comfortable with all of it.
Citygarden opened in 2009 on two blocks of the Gateway Mall in downtown St. Louis, a $45 million project funded by the Gateway Foundation. It features work from 24 international artists, installed across three acres of carefully planted gardens — 240 trees, over a thousand shrubs, and 13,000 groundcovers at time of opening, all arranged to create different moods in different sections of the park.
The sculpture selection is genuinely interesting rather than inoffensively decorative. Keith Haring's work is here. Mark di Suvero's angular steel pieces. A Niki de Saint Phalle figure in bright mosaic. The range is wide enough that something surprises you around each corner. The water features — a six-foot waterfall, and the spray plaza with its 102 programmable nozzles — make the whole thing interactive in a way that kids respond to immediately and adults have to let themselves enjoy.
It's free and open year-round. The location near the Arch and Busch Stadium means it's embedded in one of the busiest parts of the city, but the landscape design gives it a feeling of breathing room that downtown blocks don't usually have. If you have an afternoon in St. Louis and the weather cooperates, this is where to spend it.