Kansas City Art Institute - Art School by Runnells Clark Waugh and Matsumoto Architects - Part 1

Name: Kansas City Art Institute - Art School
Architect: Runnells Clark Waugh and Matsumoto Architects
Year Designed: circa 1945-46
Builder: Unknown
Year Built: circa 1948
Size: Unknown
Location: Kansas City, MO
Type: Education
Style: Modern
Status: Fair with multiple additions that obscure major parts and concepts of the original building
Photographed By: Robert McLaughlin

Runnells Clark Waugh and Matsumoto Architects were hired to do a master plan for a new Kansas City Art Institute Campus. At the time, Vanderslice Hall, the former August R. Meyer mansion housed the entire Art Institute just west of this building. After a master plan was done, the firm was hired to do the "Art School," the first in a series of new buildings. The site chosen was a narrow slice of land running north and south between Vanderslice Hall and Oak Street. The building consisted of classrooms, studios, workshop and exhibition spaces for students of life drawing and the commercial and industrial arts. The building was rendered in a vocabulary of red brick, limestone and corrugated asbestos cement panels. The most notable feature of the building was the limestone clad life drawing studio with its stepped limestone forms and multiple north facing clerestory windows.