Six finalists – a veritable who’s who of architects – have been shortlisted for a $160m extension to Kansas City, Missouri’s Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
The 61,000-sq-ft expansion will add a welcome area, photography centre, new galleries, space for hands-on art activities, a black box-style theatre for digital art, and a restaurant and events space
The project includes a 74,000-sq-ft part-renovation of the original building and an outdoor campus.
The six architects vying for the contract are:
Kengo Kuma & Associates with a design called “River / Stone” drawing from the Midwest’s prairies, riverbeds and limestone bluffs containing porches, covered passages and terraces to reduce the overall form of multiple structures;
Renzo Piano Building Workshop will connect the original Beaux-Arts building and Steven Holl’s building with a new transparent pavilion;
Selldorf Architects propose a new West Building comprised of a series of volumes which will connect the museum to its surroundings, landscape and history;
Studio Gang will merge the museum with the sculpture park, with a design uniting the museum’s interior and exterior, adding a wing with exhibition, education and social spaces;
Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism would add a building in the museum’s west expand the south terrace, recentres the cultural campus around the sculpture park and add a new entrance at the site’s north end;
WHY Architecture has created a concept called “The Hug” which wraps around three sides of the existing museum, creating new connections and adding a new sky wing.
Julián Zugazagoitia, the museum’s director, said: “We asked for bold, inspiring moves that also respected the existing museum campus and I’m so happy to say we’ve received them in these initial designs. Each is a fascinating response to a complex project brief, together they bring myriad perspectives.
“The teams have shone their beams of thought on our big questions: how do we synthesise our existing icons with a new proposition? How do we modernise and embrace the future but keep the best of our history? And, most of all, how do we create a museum that is transparent for all and instills a sense of belonging and well-being?”
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has previously been expanded by Steven Holl in 2007 with the Bloch Building.
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