‘A dream come true’: Husband & wife architects share design vision for Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art expansion

By Isabella Ledonne

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    KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KSHB) — A New York architectural firm will oversee a major expansion at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

WEISS/MANFREDI is the winner of a months-long competition that received nearly 200 entries from architectural firms around the world.

Museum goers Thursday got to see the first glimpse of what the $170 million expansion would look like.

“I really like how they’re keeping the lawn,” Audrey Knight said. “I think that’s a very big point of Kansas City.”

Accessibility was a popular topic among patrons and leaders for the new building design.

“I think it’s important to make sure that we all have as much access to it as possible,” Keith Kirkland said. “There seems to be a really strong focus on making this an everybody museum and not just a place for people who feel like elitists.”

Thursday was a day of celebration as art lovers at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art stepped into the future of art.

“We don’t see a new museum everyday,” Lyndsee Johnson said.

After months of deliberation, WEISS/MANFREDI was picked to reinvent the west side of the Nelson-Atkin’s campus overlooking the sculpture garden.

“When this competition was announced, we just thought this is one we really want to win,” Marion Weiss said.

Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi are business partners and life long partners, too. The husband and wife duo explained Kansas City’s vibrant culture drew them to apply for the competition.

“It’s a dream come true,” Weiss said. “It’s very important for us to see culture as something that unifies us rather than divides us.”

The New York couple got their architectural start with a design competition like the Nelson-Atkin’s more than 20 years ago. Since then, they’ve worked on projects worldwide and are looking forward to bringing that mindset into the metro.

“It’s not like Rome or Paris or New York and we love that sort of sense that Kansas City is growing and there’s a unique optimism here,” Manfredi said.

Weiss and Manfredi will frame the new building around transparency, accessibility and being a center for the new age of art.

“We want to make sure that some of the gallery spaces are simple enough and flexible enough to accommodate art we can’t even imagine is being constructed,” Manfredi said.

Museum leaders envision the space to welcome everyone.

“A museum for all is a very general word, we want this to be a museum ‘for me’,” Director and CEO Julian Zugazagoitia said. “You have a place where you can discover who you are. This is what the Nelson-Atkins is and should be for everyone.”

The next year will focus on design plans and fund raising for the $170 million expansion.

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