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Colloquy

\Col"lo*quy\, n. 1. A written discourse among two or more persons....

We are pleased to introduce a new online forum for commentaries and dialogues about the public realm. Colloquy will feature regular topical discussions among design professionals, academics, and others with an interest in major projects and issues affecting Kansas City's built environment.

This month's discussion concerns the design of the new Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which was unveiled to the public on November 15, 2004, and was inspired by a recent feature story by Kevin Collison in the Kansas City Star.

We welcome your feedback. Please follow the links below to respond with your comments.

Federal Reserve Bank

The public sector has profound responsibilities, and a singular capacity to make bold statements, when it comes to civic architecture and the design of the public realm. Most of the problems with the new Federal Reserve Bank are a function of the difficult architectural program, with its heavy emphasis on security and separation of the facility from its urban context. Deep setbacks from the street create a "green" buffer that separates the Bank from the surrounding environment, while an iron perimeter fence overstates itself as a security measure. The site plan betrays how the public will experience the building: mostly as a series of multi-story parking garages and other nondescript structures that constitute about 75% of the building's face to the street.

The architecture of the proposed building is itself ignomatic: absent the entablature reading "Federal Reserve Bank," this could be a commercial office building in any suburban office park, so devoid is the design of any relationship to its environs. The sad irony is that the Liberty Memorial Mall was originally conceived as a grand civic center by Jarvis Hunt, architect of Union Station, and George Kessler, landscape architect of Kansas City's parks and boulevards, to be lined with buildings of great symbolism and stately presence. What we have instead is a building whose design is intended to maximize views of Penn Valley Park and the downtown skyline for the building occupants. We have missed a unique opportunity to create a public architecture that symbolizes important public virtues, such as trust, openness, and a democratic ethos. Instead, we have another isolated, single-tenant office complex dropped into downtown's largest public park.

-- Daniel Serda, KCDC Executive Director

Read the next commentary.