The Bloch Building is wonderful and I am glad it has received so much praise and well-deserved honors. However, I found a recent article in the Boston Globe quite refreshing (sorry, the link to the full article on the Globe's site wasn't working). Yes, it had the usual praise for the architecture and inventive use of space but it went a little further to commend the reasons for the expansion. Robert Campbell wrote:
“What I like best about the Bloch was that it isn’t a stand-alone, look-at-me building. Its inventiveness isn’t employed to make some big sculptural statement. Everything about it, instead, is a reaching out for connections – to the site, to the old museum, and (for free) to the members of the public. It’s a garden piece as much as a work of architecture.”
As I read this paragraph, I felt many things. A sense of pride but also a sense of relief. Kansas City is a metropolis with a small town feel and many people were outraged by the gaul of some high flautin' east coast architect coming here to upset the natural order of things. The Nelson-Atkins made it clear from the beginning of the project that the Bloch Building (as well as renovations in the original building and a reinstallation of the Kansas City Sculpture Park) were first and foremost, a community initiative.
It is nice to have a big, shiny, new building but if it doesn't welcome and engage its visitors, then it is a failure. It's nice to know we got it right.