Carlos Jiménez

Kansas City, Missouri, can boast of one of the most admired and privileged museums in the United States. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is not just a regional museum but, since it first opened in 1933, the cultural epicenter of one of the most renowned cities of the American Midwest. The museum’s august Beaux-Arts building, along with its sumptuous and extensive grounds, posed a challenge when the museum embarked on a major expansion and transformation campaign in 1998. Many already considered The Nelson, as the museum is known in Kansas City, to be a complete, pristine and incomparable merger of landscape and architecture. Of critical concern to the museum’s trustees and administrators though was how best to add to and transform such an icon, especially one of such classical fullness and with such an intimidating legacy. Supported by public surveys and advice from a community with a deep affection for the museum, a program was outlined to redefine the museum’s image. Paramount in everyone’s minds was a desire to make the museum more accessible and useful to its community. The marvelous, encyclopedic collection and splendid grounds of the Nelson would now be cast as a broader cultural enterprise at the service of citizens and visitors alike... [+]