Museum's Contemporary Addition Sparks Mixed Response

JEFFREY BROWN: The architect chosen for the job was Steven Holl, a 60-year-old native of Washington state who now heads a major design firm in New York and is known for his use of light and space in buildings such as the Chapel of St. Ignatius in Seattle and the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland.

Holl begins by doing small watercolors developing his ideas. In Kansas City, with 650 different drawings, the end result was a building consisting of five so-called lenses that allow outside light to flow in different directions and mix with interior lighting.

STEVEN HOLL: I've always celebrated light in my architecture in different ways. And in this building, Marc Wilson, who is the director, agreed that we would have changing natural light, and we would light the artwork specifically with, you know, artificial light where we needed to, so we could keep a balance. And we let the outside, the atmosphere and the change animate the spaces.

JEFFREY BROWN: Visitors can take various routes through the connected galleries, in some places underground, in others at grand level. Art works hang on flat, vertical walls, but look up and the eye is filled with curves, arches and plays of light.

The Bloch Building holds the museum's modern and contemporary art, its African gallery, and works from a major new acquisition, the Hallmark Photography Collection. It was given to the museum in 2005. Hallmark is based in Kansas City.

KEITH DAVIS, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: The Hallmark Collection really does represent one of the great holdings of American photography that's ever been put together.

JEFFREY BROWN: Photography curator Keith Davis now has a place to put it. His opening exhibition featured early American daguerreotypes.

KEITH DAVIS: The space is powerful to the degree that it's flexible. And it's a pleasant surprise that it's so easy, in a sense, to make these little pictures look great in a space that really has a kind of grandeur to it.

STEVEN HOLL: Now, this building is almost made out of light.

JEFFREY BROWN: Made out of light?

STEVEN HOLL: Yes, because, at night, the light starts to glow, and the cubes, these breathing T's, these lenses in the landscape, begin to emit light.

JEFFREY BROWN: What was the key thing for you in trying to mix the old and create something new?

STEVEN HOLL: That the new would be totally new and not be embarrassed or ever try to ape anything of the old.

JEFFREY BROWN: It all works because of specially made low-iron glass and insulation.

STEVEN HOLL: This material behind this glass is like polar bear hair. It's hollow. And it's like straw...

JEFFREY BROWN: Polar bear hair?

STEVEN HOLL: Just exactly like polar bear hair. You know, if you shave a polar bear, you see his skin is blue, right?

JEFFREY BROWN: No, I didn't know that.

STEVEN HOLL: Well, you haven't shaved a polar bear. But, you know, it's taking the sunlight and maximizing the insulation property. Now, that's what's happening behind these structural glass planks.

This material wasn't available 10, 15 years ago. I couldn't have done this building without that material. And that's a new material. And that's saying, you know, architecture is also about technology. It's about things that are new that allow us to do things we never could do before.

And on opening day, there was much celebrating. But in the years leading up to this moment, there had been plenty of doubts, and worse. Some neighbors watching the construction found the building just plain, well, plain. Kansas City resident Lynn Hinkle told us of early public sentiment.

LYNN HINKLE, Kansas City Resident: I don't think "worried" really captures it. More angry. It looked like Butler Buildings. It looked like a trailer park, you know, the metal buildings that you see behind a farm or, you know, at an industrial park. And people were frightened, I think, that this is what we've done to this place, Nelson-Atkins Museum? I mean, you know, this is an icon already.

JEFFREY BROWN: But now you've been here, what do you think?

LYNN HINKLE: It's beyond any expectations I had. It's so far beyond them that I wandered around thinking, "Am I still in Kansas City?"

JEFFREY BROWN: Indeed, the "how interesting that this is in Kansas City" theme is inevitably part of the story here, as architecture writers based in the traditional centers of culture swoop in for a look. It's no surprise to museum director Marc Wilson, who's clearly heard it all before.

You said, I think it was, "Kansas City's more exotic than Marrakech."

MARC WILSON: Well, to a New Yorker, Kansas City is more exotic than Marrakech. Most New Yorkers can tell you where to go get a good meal in Marrakech. But in Kansas City? No.

JEFFREY BROWN: So did you want to make a statement to the world that, here in Kansas City, you could have this great architecture?

MARC WILSON: My statement isn't to the world. If I cared what the world thought, I probably wouldn't be doing much of anything. No, I mean, the statement is as much to Kansas City as it is to the world. OK, guys, time to -- you know, let's not just push the envelope; we can blow it up.

JEFFREY BROWN: Wilson is happy to have the world walk through these revolving doors, but his main target, he says, is the people throughout the Kansas City region, to debate and discuss this new museum experience.