26-04-2025
‘A third space' where art is for everybody: The old, new and much adored Nelson-Atkins
If you wanted to love Kansas City even more, then the place to be on Thursday was the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, for the announcement of the architectural firm chosen to design its expansion.
Why? Because Kirkwood Hall was packed with folks who care passionately about the future of this amazing museum, where the admission is free and the art is astonishing, and not just for a city this size.
The best part was that the crowd included all kinds of people who love and feel ownership of the institution, which was a gorgeous thing to see. (OK, some might have been there for the cookies, and this too I respect.)
When Nelson-Atkins trustee Rick Green stepped to the microphone and said we know how much you care about this museum because of your many comments, he got a big laugh of recognition from the audience.
In the months before the announcement that the trustees had chosen New York-based Weiss/Manfredi for the project, the Nelson asked the public to check out models of the six finalists and weigh in. And boy did they, filling out some 2,000 long-form cards with often quite detailed and thoughtful critiques.
A majority even agreed with the selection committee's choice, said museum director and chief executive officer Julián Zugazagoitia, who then read his favorite piece of feedback to the crowd: 'I think there should be a candy and toy store and fun things to do for kids like me and my sister. I always get my picture taken here on my birthday.' (This young sir checked the box that said NO, he would not like to receive more info from the Nelson, though. Because 'P.S. I am a kid.')
The expansion, Zugazagoitia said, is meant to make the Nelson even more accessible — a place to come as you are, enjoy the excellence of the arts but also make art.
The winning team really got Kansas City, he said.
Winnowing the original 182 submissions from 30 countries down to six and then one was a long and extremely rigorous process, involving feedback and on-site visits to workshops in New York, Chicago, Genoa, Tokyo and Los Angeles.
Green said he initially didn't see the point of those visits, because surely all of the architectural teams would be on their best behavior for them. But people being people, that wasn't always the case.
The selection committee also got technical input on cost, feasibility and function, and knew all of their options well by the end. 'You don't want to blindly walk down a path.'
It wasn't only Weiss/Manfredi's work that blew the committee away, he said, bringing light into the beaux arts building, embracing and celebrating the south lawn and and enlivening the front, too. Another factor was the way that firm's lead architects talked and maybe even more to the point 'the way they listened' that made the decision unanimous in the end. And 'it's really nice we ended up' in the same place as the public.
Max Tolnai, a member of the museum's Teen Council, told me how they were initially 'the most divided we've ever been' over which firm to choose, but ultimately landed on Weiss/Manfredi as the best option to help the Nelson further develop as what his fellow teen council member Mimi Wood called a 'third space' to be away from home, school or a job. Together, Wood said, the original building opened in 1933, the glass Bloch building opened in 2007 and this next transformation will make the Nelson 'like a weave of three parts, a beautiful collage.'
Is it now a third space for their high school classmates? It's definitely a big spot for first dates and prom pics, four members of the Teen Council told me. A big place for big moments, then, and for them, for small ones, too.
The deep feeling that they so clearly have for their museum as a home away from home just adds to my faith in the arts to bring us together when so little else can.
Yes, if a recession is coming, this beloved cultural mainstay may need all the devotion it can get to raise the $160 or $170 million, all in private funds, that it will take to give the soon to be 92-year-old Nelson a two-tiered glass addition with a green roof, a new restaurant and theater, and another glass ceiling for the Italian Rozelle Court.
But then, we will also need it more.
'I think Kansas City will be excited to support something positive,' Green said. And isn't that always true?
