Steven Holl The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Bloch Building

Streaming video - 2014

Generally acknowledged as one of the most artistically-minded architects practicing today, Steven Holl completed, in 2007, a museum considered the apex of his 33-year career: the Bloch Building for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Here, Holl designed a linear series of subterranean galleries from which luminous, sculptural shards of channel glass, which he calls "lenses," emerge from the earth along the eastern edge of the original, 1933 Beaux-Arts museum. In this enlightening visit, Holl takes us through the galleries where contemporary art is displayed beneath curving vaults admitting daylight, a tour which effectively demonstrates the convergence of space, time, and architecture.