The Kansas City Convention Center, originally Bartle Hall Convention Center or Bartle Hall, is a major convention center in

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

USA The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous ...

. It was named for

Harold Roe Bartle Harold Roe Bennett Sturdyvant Bartle (June 25, 1901 – May 9, 1974), better known as H. Roe Bartle, was an American businessman, philanthropist, executive, and professional public speaker who served two terms as mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. ...

, a prominent, two-term mayor of Kansas City in the 1950s and early-1960s. Its roof is suspended by four tall

art deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

inspired pylons, as a component of the Kansas City

skyline A skyline is the wikt:outline, outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city's overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural area, rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the ...

Overview

Kansas City Convention Center is the city's largest complex of multifaceted structures dedicated to meetings and conventions, sports, and entertainment. It has of column-free exhibit space on one floor, of tenant finishes, a conference center, another of additional space on two levels, 45 meeting rooms, a 2,400-seat fine arts theater, and an arena that can seat over 10,700 people, along with a ballroom that was scheduled for an April 2007 opening. This is all connected to major downtown hotels and underground parking by glass-enclosed skywalks and below-ground walkways. The Barney Allis Plaza is a public square for outdoor receptions, festivals, and concerts. The exterior of the facility is highlighted by a high metal panel canopy over pavestone walkway at the main entry. The southern elevation of the building again features a high canopy with fixed blade sunshades and opens onto a decorative concrete plaza designed by Jun Kaneko, a renowned Japanese ceramic artist.

Pylons

The center sits above Interstate 670, suspended by steel cables supported by four tall concrete pylons. The sculptures that crown the pylons, called Sky Stations, were designed by artist R.M. Fischer in 1994. Each is made of

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

and

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

, approximately 24x15-feet in diameter, and between and in height. They were primarily inspired by the 1930s

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

chandelier and decorative design elements throughout the adjacent Municipal Auditorium. They were placed atop each

pillar A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

via

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

. Lightning damage was found to the easternmost Sky Station during an inspection in late 2015. The sculpture was removed for repair on May 8, 2016. The repair project cost $1.6 million, all but $250,000 of which was covered by insurance. The repaired Sky Station was reinstalled on September 18, 2016, and electricians also installed 50 LED lights, as part of the downtown skyline.

Construction

The expansion of Bartle Hall was a significant technical challenge. Construction of the additional convention space was built above a continuously open six-lane freeway, Interstate 670. This required the installation of four tall pylons to support the facility's roof. This is the largest, column-free, convention environment in the world. It was designed to meet green building standards and achieved the city's first

LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building certification systems, green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating ...

Silver rating. The general contractor was Walton Construction. The site team included 2 LEED Accredited Professionals documenting and tracking materials, construction methods, recycling, and waste management. Architects were HNTB Architects, BNIM; engineers were Henderson Engineers; and multimedia, acoustics, and IT were by Shen Milsom & Wilke. In 2000, American Institute of Architects wrote, "The 1976 building is architecturally noteworthy for its structural system of steel trusses that frame directly onto triangular end-frames." Those huge triangles were too heavy for highways, so barges carried them up the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

. The total project cost was , and it was completed on schedule in July 1994.

Gallery

File:Kansas City Night 08MAR07 097.jpg, The Center stretches across Interstate 670 in Kansas City. File:Bartle Hall Sky Stations Kansas City MO.jpg, The Center is suspended above Truman Road and Interstate I-670. File:Bartle Hall Expansion 16th Street.jpg, The Center expansion, viewed from 16th Street. File:Bartle Hall Pylons from 12th Street.jpg, Pylons viewed from W. 12th Street File:Bartle Hall Convention Ctr Pylon 01.JPG, A sculpture File:Bartle Hall Convention Ctr Pylon 02.JPG, A sculpture File:Bartle Hall Convention Ctr Pylon 03.JPG, A sculpture

References

External links