Transforming Museum Experiences to Serve All – Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
In an ongoing relationship that was developed in 2001, BNIM has worked with the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on 60+ projects over two decades. This work has included the Bloch Building addition in collaboration with Steven Holl Architects, design and renovation of multiple galleries, museum signage and wayfinding, an education center and reference library, sculpture hall, new parking structure and entry plaza, property acquirement feasibility studies, and climate grant applications.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s mission statement is “Where the power of art engages the spirit of community.” The museum’s campus-wide transformation has encompassed a number of renovation, new construction, and historical restoration projects over two decades that have enabled the museum to continue its role in serving a vibrant arts community in Kansas City, sustaining tourism, creating jobs, and providing educational opportunities for all ages.
RESTORING THE 1933 BUILDING
2002 – Building Envelope Repair
Restoration efforts for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art help ensure this beloved cultural destination continues to thrive in the Kansas City community for decades to come. BNIM worked on the building envelope repair and restoration of the existing historic building, involving detailed cleaning and tuckpointing of the stone façade, membrane and green roofing replacement, and the entrance steps renovation. The exterior stone cladding was cleaned with a low-pressure warm water wash mixture, along with selective tuckpointing and epoxy-injected crack repairs. The formula for the tuckpointing mortar was referenced from original construction drawings and laboratory testing to carefully replicate the original material both for appearance and structural/material compatibility. Certain locations also required removal, repair, and re-setting of stone panels.
FILTERING LIGHT
2005 – Entry Plaza + Parking Garage
163,200 SF (WITH STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS)
The main entry plaza for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art creates a beautiful and functional arrival experience for visitors, shaped by art and architecture. The entry plaza features a reflecting pool and installation entitled “One Sun/34 Moons” by Walter De Maria, which is situated above a 450-car below-grade parking structure. Focused on drawing connections to the museum’s entry plaza above and creating a cohesive arrival experience, a specially formed ‘wave tee’ ceiling made of precast and rest-in-place concrete lets filtered light down into the parking garage via 37 lenses from the reflecting pool above. The parking structure further enhances visitors’ experiences through seamless connections between arrival and the museum entry with access to the surrounding sculpture garden and the Bloch Building addition, including an underground entry to the plaza courtyard.
MUSEUM AS A COMMUNITY RESOURCE
2005 – Ford Learning Center
14,370 SF
The Ford Learning Center, as part of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s Bloch Building Addition, reflects and advances the museum’s long-standing commitment to arts education. The Ford Learning Center is a welcoming space for children, families, and adult learners alike and is the heart of the Nelson’s education and outreach programs. The learning center tripled the museum’s dedicated space for educational programming, creating several classrooms, one of which is dedicated to ceramics; an educator resource center; orientation and training spaces; and museum support space, including an office suite and workspace. Located near the main entrance to the Bloch Building Addition, the Ford Learning Center is a highly visible and as an integral part of the museum, serving as a gateway to arts education and exploration.
THE HEART OF THE MUSEUM
2005 – Adelaide Cobb Ward Sculpture Hall
2,300 SF
The Adelaide Cobb Ward Sculpture Hall serves as a connector of old and new, thoughtfully bridging the 1930s Beaux-Arts detailing of the original museum’s Kirkwood Hall with the modern expressions of light and space in the Bloch Building addition. Expanding upon the concept originally conceived by designer and BNIM’s collaborator, Steven Holl Architects, BNIM’s design of Adelaide Cobb Ward Sculpture Hall celebrates Nelson-Atkin Museum of Art’s past and present. The centrally located sculpture hall serves as convening hub for surrounding European galleries and as the shared “heart” of the museum’s historic building and its contemporary counterpart to the east. Sensitive renovations of the Atkins Auditorium, the Atkins Lobby, and Atkins Stair Hall were also included in this project, contributing to the circulation and cohesive experience from the grand central volume of Kirkwood Hall through to the Bloch Building lobby.
THE SPINE OF THE MUSEUM
2005 — Kirkwood Hall Renovation
Kirkwood Hall, the ceremonial heart of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s original building, showcases the museum’s 1930s Beaux-Arts style design. Today, the hall serves as a central point of connection and function, similar to a spine, between the museum’s galleries and the new addition, helping to bridge past and present. In conjunction with the creation of the Adelaide Cobb Ward Sculpture Hall, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art worked with BNIM to carefully renovate and restore Kirkwood Hall, the museum’s north and south entrance halls, and the entry vestibules. These renovations included: the restoration of decorative plaster coves; the construction of new plaster beams (integrating life safety systems and light track locations for art and event lighting); the decorative painting of the new plaster beams to match the original ceiling design; the restoration of all existing historical light fixtures; the installation of new lighting fixtures designed to illuminate the coves of Kirkwood Hall; and the specification of new glazing for Kirkwood Hall’s saw-tooth skylights, as well as the laylite ceiling.
FEATHER AND STONE
2007 – The Bloch Building Addition
165,000 SF (WITH STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS)
The Bloch Building addition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is the first major addition to this beloved cultural institution and Beaux-Arts style structure since it opened in 1933. Considered a “feather” to the original museum’s “stone,” the Bloch Building’s five lenses dot the landscape, housing new gallery space under specially contoured ceilings that respond to the undulating landscape outside. The lenses diffuse natural light into the art galleries below, and at night, the galleries softly glow from within. Moving through the addition, visitors experience a flow between light, art, architecture and landscape. In collaboration with designer Steven Holl Architects, BNIM served as Architect of Record for the addition, which provides a 71% increase in total museum space. The Bloch Building introduces a transformational 150,000 square feet of new galleries and public facilities including an entry lobby, art library, cafe and sculpture court devoted to the works of Isamu Noguchi.
DEDICATED TO THE ARTS OF THE NATIVE PEOPLES
2009 – American Indian Art Galleries
6,260 SF
The design of the American Indian Art Galleries brings to fruition the Museum’s long-standing efforts to illuminate the importance of Native artistic traditions, and the significant role these traditions have played in the develop ment of our nation’s cultural identity. The collection is arranged by origin according to seven geographic areas: Woodlands, Plains, Southwest, Plateau, California and the adjacent Great Basin, Northwest and Arctic. The design of galleries demonstrates departure from the neo-classical details of the original building, instead focusing on clean, modern details with a material palette that exudes richness and depth to place emphasis on the collection itself. The Israeli Greige Limestone flooring and base create a monolithic field on which glass cases provide a setting for vibrant works of Native art. Built by the renowned casework fabricator, Laboratorio Museotechnico Goppian of Milan, the large expanses of glass provide an uninhibited view of the collection and allows the bright and colorful work of one Native culture to be viewed through the lens of another.
SHOWCASING AMERICAN VISUAL CULTURE AND CRAFTSMANSHIP
2009 – Sarah and Landon Rowland American Art Galleries
6,350 SF
The Sarah and Landon Rowland American Art Galleries feature work from unique periods in American Art history, including painting, sculpture and works on paper dating from the 18th century through World War II. The galleries, which arranged in chronological order, culminate in the collection’s grand exhibit space, Rowland Hall. Designed in the Adam Style, Rowland Hall features ornate molding and an elaborate vaulted plaster ceiling illuminated by two-glass oculi. On the opposite end of the linear sequence of galleries is the Rotunda, an existing “nodal” gallery of its own significance. The Drawing and Print Corridor and Antechamber, which connect Rowland Hall to the original Rotunda, were also completely renovated. New painting galleries feature modernized laylite glass ceilings, in response to the original glass ceiling installation found in typical galleries throughout the museum.
EMPHASIS ON THE ART
2010 – Egyptian Art Galleries in the Susan B. and Mark A. Susz Galleries
1,012 SF
The new Egyptian Gallery, part of the Susan B. and Mark A. Susz Galleries provides a permanent home for the exquisite funerary objects of the Ancient Egyptian noblewoman Meretites. The gallery space is designed to be calm, reflective, and reverent to the nature of the collection. BNIM worked closely with the Museum’s Exhibition Design Staff and Italian fabricators to develop casework that could accommodate the extreme conservation requirements of the collection and maintain a high degree of transparency. In addition to a complete renovation of architectural finishes, lighting and new casework, the scope of work also included comprehensive life safety and mechanical system upgrades. The exterior walls of the Nelson-Atkins Building, which define the galleries were bolstered with new insulation and a moisture barrier helping to preserve the collection and improve the performance of the Museum’s operations.
CONSERVATION, ADMINISTRATION, INCLUSIVE DESIGN, SIGNAGE AND OTHER PROJECTS
2010 – Administrative Office Renovation
1,377 SF
As part of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s overall renovation and long-term plan of locating all employee offices within the museum’s campus, the lower level of the original building was renovated to provide administrative office space for the museum’s curatorial, human resources, and finance departments. The program included private and open offices, conference space, workrooms, and break areas. The renovation involved significant alterations to architectural finishes, as well as the removal of existing combustible materials (wood plank catwalks and cork insulation) and large-scale upgrades to the mechanical, electrical and life safety systems. Due to the subterranean nature of the space, the design team’s focus on integrating quality lighting was paramount in creating a welcoming space for museum staff.
2016 — West Campus Study
Exploring the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art’s desire for additional gallery and office space, BNIM worked with the museum to develop a series of expansion options with the West Campus Study. Three of the studies occur immediately parallel to the west side of the existing building, one is further west in Southmoreland Park, and the final is the museum’s central lawn. Though all five options carry merit, three options proved to be most viable. Each study ties back to the existing building — connecting visitors to neighboring greenspace and existing gallery experiences.
SIMULATING ENVIRONMENTS FOR ORIGINAL IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES
2017 – Bloch Galleries of European Art
9,000 SF
The new Bloch Galleries feature the Marion and Henry Bloch Collection of Impressionist and Post- Impressionist art, comprised of 29 masterpieces acquired by the Bloch family and gifted to the museum in 2010. The Bloch Galleries create a permanent home for the Bloch Collection and welcomed nearly 3,500 visitors during the galleries’ opening weekend. The expanded galleries add more than 220 linear feet of wall space and create an open viewing experience with sight lines encouraging viewers to make connections among works. The design team’s cohesive approach to the Bloch Galleries creates a harmonious connection with the existing historic building while incorporating contemporary construction methods and cutting-edge technology. The galleries feature state-of-the-art technology, including tunable dynamic white lighting that can simulate the environments for which the works were originally created and allow precise control of lighting color and intensity on each specific artwork in the galleries.