Municipal Auditorium - Kansas City MO

City:: Kansas City, MO
Site Type:: Civic Facilities, Auditoriums and Arenas
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
Designer:: Hoit Price and Barnes

Description

The Kansas City Municipal Auditorium was built by the PWA in 1934-35.

“Municipal Auditorium is a large, multi-purpose facility in Kansas City, Missouri with three halls: The Arena, Music Hall, and Little Theatre. It opened in 1936 and features Streamline Moderne and Art Deco architecture and architectural details…

The streamline moderne architecture was designed by the lead architectural firm of Gentry, Voskamp & Neville to appeal to new visitors with cool and confident restraint. True to its name, the style promised to envelop the visitor in modernity, assuring him/her that Kansas City was a rising star in the country, a place to recommend to friends and colleagues. Alonzo H. Gentry, of the lead architectural firm of Gentry, Voskamp & Neville, was to later design the Truman Library. Hoit, Price & Barnes, the associated architects responsible for the HVAC work at the Municipal Auditorium, had recently designed the Art Deco skyscraper, the Kansas City Power and Light Building (completed in 1931).

When the building opened in 1935, it was called by the Architectural Record “one of the 10 best buildings of the world that year” ^[5] In 2000, the Princeton Architectural Press called it one of the 500 most important architectural works in the United States.”

(wikipedia)