Nelson Atkins – Sculpture Park and Bloch Building

On Mother’s Day we didn’t really have plans, so after brunch we wandered our way over to the Plaza area. Actually we thought maybe we’d hit up a park, and found one across the way from the Nelson Atkins. The park equipment was kinda lame though, so then we thought we’d run Pete around in the Nelson Atkins front lawn for a little bit. Instead we ended up spending several hours.

We played hide and seek around the Three Bowls.  Smells funny, but is one of my favorites 🙂

We checked out the newest addition to the park –Roxy Paine’s 56-foot stainless steel branched structure, titled “Ferment”.

Aaaaand by that point it was too much heat for us, so we moved indoors (into the Bloch addition). The Bloch Building is made of five frosted glass “boxes” that appear to have sprouted right out of the lawn.  It is joined to the original 1933 museum structure, and while the Bloch Building is entirely modern – it compliments the original building amazingly well.  The New York Times described it as a “ghost-like echo” of the original structure, which is the best description I’ve heard yet.  The ideal time to go, if you ask me, is on a bright sunny day – the light filters in through the glass walls/ceilings, making the gallery spaces glow.  That means a day like Sunday was perfect.

I love the flooring, a nice organic contrast to all that shine and glass.

More work by Paine, his smaller scale dendroid sculptures.

And really: photos don’t do this place justice.  If you haven’t taken a trip yet you really should go check it out.

Then we popped out back, into the heat and sun again, and played around the sculptures out back.

We love this place, I am bummed that we haven’t taken Pete before now.  I can guarantee there will be many a return trip.