Kansas City: World-Class Art, Jazz Heritage and Legendary Smoke
Visit the Nelson-Atkins art museum and its glowing Bloch addition, shop the first US automobile shopping plaza, learn Kansas City jazz roots at 18th and Vine, taste Arthur Bryant barbecue legacy, hear the symphony at the Kauffman Center, and walk the Civil War battlefield in Loose Park.
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Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, opened in 1933 and funded through the combined bequests of William Rockhill Nelson and Mary McAfee Atkins, holds over 42,000 objects and is considered one of the finest general art museums in the United States. The Asian art collection, particularly Chinese painting and sculpture, is among the most important in the country. The Bloch Building addition designed by Steven Holl and completed in 2007 at a cost of 200 million dollars uses light-diffusing glass lenses embedded in the landscape, creating a building that changes character throughout the day. The installation of Shuttlecocks, four oversized badminton shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen placed on the museum lawn in 1994, is among the most reproduced public art images associated with any American museum.
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Country Club Plaza and Plaza Architecture
The Country Club Plaza, developed by J.C. Nichols Company beginning in 1922, was the first automobile-oriented shopping center in the United States and the first designed with parking in mind from the start. The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, with towers, fountains, and tilework modeled on Seville, was deliberately chosen by Nichols to evoke permanence and European character. The development covers 55 acres and contains 180 shops and restaurants. The Plaza Art Fair each September is one of the largest outdoor art fairs in the United States, drawing over 270 artists. The annual Thanksgiving lighting ceremony, begun in 1925, illuminates 200,000 LED lights along building rooflines, a tradition that draws crowds of over 200,000 for the switch-on event.
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Kansas City Jazz Heritage and 18th and Vine
The 18th and Vine Historic District was the center of Kansas City jazz from the 1920s through the 1940s. Kansas City jazz, developed under the political protection of Tom Pendergast political machine that kept clubs open through Prohibition and the Depression, emphasized a looser swing feel and extended improvisation over chord changes. Count Basie formed his orchestra in Kansas City in 1935. Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920 and developed his bebop innovations partly through the Kansas City cutting sessions. The American Jazz Museum at 1616 East 18th Street, opened in 1997, is the only museum in the United States exclusively dedicated to jazz. The adjacent Negro Leagues Baseball Museum shares the building and interprets the parallel professional baseball world that existed during segregation.
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Kansas City Barbecue Traditions
Kansas City barbecue is defined by its embrace of all meats, the use of a thick tomato-based sauce applied during cooking, and a slow-smoke tradition stretching back to Henry Perry, a Memphis transplant who began selling barbecued meat from a streetcar barn in 1908. Arthur Bryant, who took over Perry operation after his brother Charlie died, became internationally famous after journalist Calvin Trillin called Bryant a mere 17 blocks from downtown Kansas City the single best restaurant in the world in 1974. Joe s Kansas City Bar-B-Que, previously called Oklahoma Joe s, has been called the best barbecue in America by Bon Appetit. The Kansas City Barbeque Society, founded in 1986, oversees competitive barbecue rules and sanctions over 500 contests annually worldwide.
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Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in 2011 at a cost of 413 million dollars, contains two distinct concert halls: Helzberg Hall, home of the Kansas City Symphony, seating 1,800, and Muriel Kauffman Theatre, home of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Kansas City Ballet, seating 1,600. The building exterior of glass and steel curves over the two halls like a protective shell. The Kansas City Symphony, founded in 1982 under conductor Russell Patterson, has grown to 85 full-time musicians and is considered one of the strongest regional orchestras in the United States. The building is named for Ewing and Muriel Kauffman, whose philanthropy also funded the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the nation largest foundation focused on entrepreneurship education.
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Loose Park and Kansas City Civil War Battle
Loose Park, a 75-acre park in the Waldo neighborhood given to the city by Ella C. Loose in 1927, was the site of the Battle of Westport on October 23, 1864, the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River, involving 29,000 Union and 8,500 Confederate troops. Confederate General Sterling Price was attempting to retake Missouri for the Confederacy during his Missouri Raid but was decisively defeated at Westport, ending Confederate hopes for the state. The park contains a small monument marking the battlefield. Today Loose Park is known for its rose garden with over 5,000 plants representing 150 varieties, its tennis courts, and a duck pond. The park connects through the linear Indian Creek Trail to the broader Kansas City trail network of over 200 miles.