{"id":144,"date":"2008-10-05T22:29:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T03:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=144"},"modified":"2025-07-31T20:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T01:29:17","slug":"kansas-city-nelson-atkins-bloch-addition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/kansas-city-nelson-atkins-bloch-addition\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins’s $200M mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

And it\u2019s ugly, too.<\/p>\n

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholder<\/div>\n

The Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art<\/a> is one Kansas City locale that plays a fairly significant role in The Proviso.<\/em> I mean, the whole city is rather its own character (or at least, I tried to make it so), but this one spot, I think, plays the most parts other than \u201cChouteau\u201d County<\/a> and its pretty courthouse and The Country Club Plaza<\/a>. It hosts a senatorial fundraising party, it\u2019s where one of the female protagonists goes to meditate, and it\u2019s the gallery chosen to premier a new painting by an infamous artist.<\/p>\n

Anyhoo, I see on BlogKC<\/a> that the gallery\u2019s having to cut back like everybody else. Well, you see, the difference this time is because of that, uhm, $200M construction trailer<\/span> brilliant Steven Holl masterpiece called the Bloch addition that they built next to the neoclassical structure.<\/p>\n

Time<\/em> called it the number one \u201c(New and Upcoming) Architectural Marvels<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adding a new wing to a neoclassical museum, Holl devised a spectacular update on classicism: an irregular series of volumes that cascade down the museum\u2019s lawn and glow from within. The effect against the nighttime sky is nothing short of magical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you say so, but I\u2019m just an ignernt country rube who obviously doesn\u2019t know brilliance, especially when it cost more than it was \u2019sposed to. And why are all the kudos about its brilliance<\/a> coming from people who don\u2019t live here?<\/p>\n

(Poor Rodin. They displaced The Thinker<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\"Rozzelle
This is the Rozzelle Court where people would have been mingling during Fen\u2019s senatorial fundraiser (THE PROVISO) and during Bryce and Giselle\u2019s \u201cwedding\u201d on their 10th anniversary of the fundraiser (LION\u2019S SHARE).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, three problems with this thing.<\/p>\n

A. It\u2019s ugly. Did I mention that yet?
\n 
\nB. It\u2019s expensive to light (because, you see, its only marginally redeeming architectural feature can only be seen at night when it\u2019s lit).
\n 
\nC. It\u2019s the most inefficiently designed interior space I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/div>\n

So what is one of the things they\u2019re having to cut? The hours and the lighting. And I\u2019m telling you, folks, in the daytime, without the lighting, it looks like a construction trailer\/storage shed.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not going to be one of those people who would start crying if they began to charge admission, because, well, it\u2019s a very prestigious gallery in terms of its collection and yeah, I\u2019ll pay to get in. And I know they\u2019re not going to knock the damned thing down especially since they spent so much money on it.<\/p>\n

But I just need to poke a stick and say, you spent a whole lot more money than you thought you would on something the citizenry doesn\u2019t really like and now you can\u2019t pay to make it do its featured thing that somewhat redeems it.<\/p>\n

Enjoy. Or don\u2019t. If you live here and you feel me, meet me in the Rozzelle court (closed Tuesdays now, remember!) and we\u2019ll commiserate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And it\u2019s ugly, too. The Nelson-Atkins Gallery of Art is one Kansas City locale that plays a fairly significant role in The Proviso. I mean, the whole city is rather its own character (or at least, I tried to make it so), but this one spot, I think, plays the most parts other than \u201cChouteau\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,318,81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kansas-city","category-tales-of-dunham","category-the-proviso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17060,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/17060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}