Best Hope for the Future

Let there be no doubt: Of all flyover cities in America, none has a better art scene than Kansas City. With the Kansas City Art Institute churning out Whitney Biennial-caliber artists year after year, and such nationally recognized patrons as Margaret Silva at Grand Arts and Bruce Hartman at the Johnson County Community College Gallery of Art, we're the envy of Denver, St. Louis and Indianapolis. Now, in the waning years of America's craze for architecturally daring museum expansions, we're ensured of maintaining our top ranking well into the next century. The Nelson-Atkin Museum of Art's expansion was designed by Stephen Holl, the best architect in the nation, according to Time magazine. It features a series of glass buildings that cascade down the Nelson's spectacular front lawn, with pathways and the museum's renowned collection of Henry Moore sculptures winding between them. "A string of jewels," as Holl describes them, that will glow at night and offer glimpses of the museum's expansive art collection to passersby. Best of all, it's right on schedule. The new addition will open -- to international fanfare, no doubt -- in the summer of 2006. Doubters need only stop by the museum and park in the new garage -- a work of art in itself, with its luminously undulating roof -- then climb the stairs to catch a glimpse of the reflective pool (dazzling with its site-specific light installation, Walter De Maria's One Sun/34 Moons) designed to occupy the space where the old, unsightly, maddeningly small parking lot was. The ribbon was cut on that phase of the expansion exactly when museum officials said it would be, in June 2002. For those of us who've grown weary of big-ticket promises that never seem to materialize, this punctuality alone offers real hope.