Nelson-Atkins' Design Competition Aims At Innovation

By Steve Kraske

Published December 13, 2011 at 6:00 PM CST

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London's Serpentine Gallery commissions temporary pavilions from internationally acclaimed architects. This pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry, was built in 2008.

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Unveiled at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, the UK Pavilion, designed by Thomas Heatherwick, is six stories tall and features 60,000 translucent rods that channel sunlight into the interior of the pavilion.

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This design, the Nimbus Project, was submitted to a competition in New York City in which designers were asked to create buildings with as little environmental impact as possible.

From the Ferris wheel to the ice cream cone, some pretty influential things have been unveiled at World's Fairs. For Kansas City, even an upcoming exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art featuring World's Fair fare is getting some local designers and architects excited.

In keeping with the spirit of the fairs, the museum is holding a competition to find the most innovative design for a temporary pavilion to be erected on the lawn just south the the iconic shuttlecocks. Scheduled to stand for the length of the museum's Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts and the World's Fairs, 1859-1939 exhibit, the winning pavilion design must keep in mind the lack of electricity at the site, and a $20,000 budget.

Wednesday on Up to Date, the exhibit's curator, Catherine Futter, and Julian Zugazagoitia, the museum's director, talk about the upcoming exhibit and pavilion, and what they hope Kansas Citians will get out of it.

If you've got questions or comments for our guests, we'd love to hear them. Give us a call at 816 235 2888 or email us at uptodate@kcur.org. You can also post comments on KCUR's Facebook page or Tweet us at @KCURUpToDate.

For more information about the Nelson Atkins' upcoming exhibit, and a link to the call for proposals, visit the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art website.