Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - Bloch Building Addition

Bloch Building Addition

In 1993, the museum began to consider the first expansion plans since the completion of the unfinished areas in the 1940s. Plans called for a 55 percent increase in space and were finalized in 1999.

Architect Steven Holl won an international competition in 1999 for the design of the addition. Holl's concept was to build five glass towers to the east of the original building which he calls lenses. The lenses they top a 165,000-square-foot (15,300 m2) underground building known as the Bloch Building. It is named for H&R Block co-founder Henry W. Bloch. The Bloch building houses the museum's contemporary, African, photography, and special exhibitions galleries as well a new cafe, the museum's reference library, and the Isamu Noguchi Sculpture Court. The addition cost approximately $95 million and opened June 9, 2007. It was part of $200 million in renovations to the museum that included the Ford Learning Center which is home to classes, workshops, and resources for students and educators and opened in fall of 2005.

In the competition to design the addition, all the entrants except Holl proposed creating a modern addition on the north side of the museum which would have drastically altered or obscured the north facade which served as the main entrance to the museum. However Holl proposed placing the addition on the east side perpendicular to the main building. Holl's lenses now march down the east perimeter of the grounds.

While still on the drawing boards, Holl's plan met with considerable controversy. It was described as "grotesque, a metal box." However reviews of the new structure have generally been raves:

New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff gives this description:

The result is a building that doesn’t challenge the past so much as suggest an alternate world view that is in constant shift. Seen from the north plaza, the addition’s main entrance gently defers to the old building, the crystalline form suggesting a ghostlike echo of the austere stone facade. From there, the eye is drawn to the distinct yet interconnected translucent blocks, which are partly buried in the landscape.

The museum has gone against traditional conservatorial thinking in allowing natural light from the lenses to illuminate its art work. Most of the exhibits in the addition are below ground with the 27 to 34-foot (10 m) glass towers above them. Officials say that advances in glass technology have allowed them to block most of the harmful ultraviolet rays that could damage the exhibited works.

The custom glass planks were manufactured by Glasfabrik Lamberts and imported by Bendheim Wall Systems.

Admission to the Museum is free every day and visitors may use any of seven entrances to access building. The main visitor's desk is in the Bloch Building. On the north side of the museum, A reflecting pool now occupies part of the J.C. Nichols Plaza on the north facade and contains 34 occuli to provide natural light into the parking garage below. The casting of The Thinker which occupied this space prior to the renovations has been relocated to south of the museum.