Hugh Petter of Robert Adam Architects was employed by The National Monument Foundation as the design architect and classical design consultant for a new monumental arch to celebrate the millennium in Atlanta. The Millennium Gate forms the centre-piece of a new urban regeneration project on the site of an old steel mill at Atlantic Station in mid town.

The 2000 years message will be represented by four large female goddess figures by Alexander Stoddart, one of whom occupies each pier of the arch: each will represent an epoch of 500 years – antiquity; the middle ages; the renaissance, and the modern age.  The civilising values of peace and justice are represented by two further goddess figures, each of which sits on a pylon on the periphery of the composition.  These symbolise the re-civilizing of the city.  An inscription in Latin in the main frieze celebrates 2000 years of peaceful accomplishment.  At the inauguration ceremony in July 2008, Congressman John Lewis, a contemporary and colleague of Martin Luther King (himself a native Atlantan) declared the monument “a place of peace.”

The building houses a public gallery for contemporary classical sculpture, as well as spaces for events. The 70ft high building is the first classical monument of this scale to be built in the USA since the Jefferson Memorial in 1936.

The project is the brainchild of American architectural designer and philanthropist, Rodney Mims Cook Jnr. and is part of the Foundation’s wider aim to build monuments in American cities as a catalyst for urban regeneration. Asked why he appointed a British architect and a British sculptor to lead the project, Cook commented that he had worked previously with Hugh Petter on the creation of the World Athletes Monument.  “The WA monument has been a tremendous success, thanks in large part to Hugh’s efforts. Together with Sandy Stoddart, Scotland’s leading classical sculptor, they make an extremely talented design team and have produced a worthy successor to the Jefferson Memorial.”