Tour of the Kauffman Center in KC
When I first started blogging I was still in architecture school, and blogged a lot more about design related stuff. Now it’s not as big a part of my life. Or rather, design is not my life. I don’t think I will ever be one of those architecture majors who is obsessed with design – I just don’t have it in me. I want a life outside of work.
Oops. That is not the intro I was going for. But I kind of like it because it’s honest, so I am going to stick with it. I guess what I am getting at is that I used to write about this sort of thing a lot more often.
Anyway, I had an opportunity* this week to tour a brand new building in Kansas City – the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts designed by Moshe Safdie. The center has a theater and a music hall, and the opens with its first performances in mid September. I didn’t get any outside pictures of my own, but there are some great photos here. Both the photos below are from that site.
Here are my brief thoughts on the building:
- This building is unique and stunning, but I feel like a lot of the styles are very borrowed – the Sydney Opera House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim in NYC (see below), Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall… that’s probably pretty typical though. You can’t re-invent the wheel every time around. And I know all my designs in school sucked (coupled with the fact that I don’t design now) so I really should shut my mouth.
- It was hard to be in the lobby on a sunny day. All glass with a white interior creates a lot of glare. And my sunglasses broke right before we got there. But it will probably be amazing to be in there at night and see the city.
- I didn’t really care for some of the lobby finishes and I thought the finishes in the theater were… different. Then again, I know nothing about finishes!
- But it was all made up for by the beautiful music hall (first photo below from the site I linked to above):
Photo I took, showing the organ installed:
The whole reason we were in Kansas City was to go to this “Meet Your Seat” gala at this center. Steven’s dad had a small plaque dedicated to Steven’s mom placed on one of the chairs in the second row of the music hall. Steven’s mom loved music, and played a lot of instruments, including the organ. I think she would have loved the music hall. Steven’s dad actually bought tickets to a few events, so we will get to go to some in the music hall. I bet the acoustics will be amazing.
We are nearing the one-year anniversary of Steven’s mom’s passing, and there is not much I want to say here, right now, about it, other than I have a very good memory for dates and events, and this week has been rough. I can remember exact details of what I was doing today and all of last week and the upcoming week and it’s just hard to remember all of the pain we were in. And the ups and downs of each day. The amazing thing I do remember is how supportive much of my family and many of my friends were. I thank you all again.
Maybe I will feel like talking about that more later, but for now I just wanted to share these pictures. And since I still love plans and sections and details**, here are some cool ones of the center from the same website I linked to above:
*Remember last week when I mentioned all of my work stress? A lot of it was related to this thing that came up last minute and meant I couldn’t go on this trip to KC… then the work stuff all got canceled last minute because of the hurricane, so I got on a last minute flight to KC. As you can tell, it was all very “last minute.”
**Erin, last week when I told you I couldn’t freehand sketch, but I could draw plans and sections, this is what I meant.
Themocracy
Kansas City is such a pretty city! I grew up an hour southeast of KC and miss the area.
Belated Happy Anniversary to you!
My cousin’s wife lost her father very unexpectedly last Friday. It has been a very sad time in our family, and my heart breaks for Lana and Lex who lost their grandpa. 🙁
The storms messed up a lot of things in our east coast offices, but the higher ups don’t seem to be very sympathetic to the fact some things have fallen behind. :p
I’m so sorry to hear about your cousin’s wife’s father. Will you be able to go out there?
Oh wow! That is quite the place.
The plaque is the most beautiful thing in the concert hall!
I’ll be thinking of you guys in the upcoming days. Sending big, suffocating, hugs to you guys : ) Doesn’t that sound nice?
Thanks Gina 🙂 I look forward to your hugs 🙂
Wow…it’s already been a year? Man.
Such a great tribute to her!
Yeah. It’s gone by crazy fast!
I know what you mean about wanting to have life outside of work. A few people at my work seem to want to talk about it and research things related to it and whatnot all the time… and continue to take classes… and I just don’t care enough to do any of that stuff on my own time. Maybe it’s bad for my career but it’s good for my life! Also, if I told you what I do for a living you’d think those people were pretty boring.
That music hall looks really cool but when I saw the photo I thought of the pictures I’ve seen of the opera house in Australia so I see what you’re saying.
It’s very cool that Steven’s dad got a plaque on a chair for his wife. It’s going to be a rough week for you I’m sure. Email me if you need to chat.
Alright, now you have to tell me what you do!
I remember when you were going through that and I hope you all get through the next week okay. Hang in there. I think the plaque is a lovely idea to remember someone!
You also had your 4th anniversary – congratulations! We will have our 20th on 12-12-12 and we are trying to think of something special to do because we usually don’t do very much, maybe go out to dinner or something. I am trying to talk Stefaan into a trip for our big one next year (NYC???)
I think your big trip should be for the CU race this May. Hee hee 🙂
Thanks for your tour of the Kauffman Center – sounds like a really cool space. Since I’m not an architecture/design type-of-a-person, I like reading your review/critique.
Hope that you are kind to yourself this week.
Awh that plaque is so wonderful. :'( I remember a year ago too Kim. <3 Love you both and Andrew & David! What a beautiful thing he did in remembrance of her!