Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

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Once completed, the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts will be a 316,000 square-foot performing arts center. Located in Downtown Kansas City in the United States, it will serve the Kansas City Metropolitan Area as host to three resident companies: the Kansas City Symphony, Ballet, and Opera. Ground was broken on October 6, 2006, and it is scheduled to open its doors in December 2009.

1 Performance facilities
2 Resident companies
3 Architects and architecture
4 Key events
5 Organization
6 External links

[edit] Performance facilities

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of two halls and a theatre:

Proscenium Theater—An 1,800-seat proscenium theatre for theatrical performances, ballet, and opera.
Concert Hall—A 1,600-seat concert hall for musical performances. This hall can be configured for "in the round" performances. This hall will also contain an organ built by the Casavant Frères organ firm of St. Hyacinthe Quebec, Canada.
Celebration Hall—A multi-use venue available for performances, meetings, group gatherings, and special events serving both educational and smaller performing arts groups. It can be configured for 250 seats for performances and 400 seats for banquets and special events.

The theater and concert hall are joined by a central glass-enclosed lobby that will lead to terraced gardens on the nine-acre grounds. In addition, facilities are available for banquets, receptions, and other events.

[edit] Resident companies

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts will be the home of three resident companies:

Kansas City Ballet
Kansas City Lyric Opera
Kansas City Symphony

In addition, visiting companies, musical acts, theater troops, speakers, and others can utilize the facility.

[edit] Architects and architecture

The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts was designed by Yasuhisa Toyota (acoustician), Richard Pilbrow (theater consultant), and Moshe Safdie (lead architect).

The building serves as a connection between Downtown and Southern areas of the city. The structure is formed by a series of undulating vertical segments of a circle, forming the Northern container of the theater's back stage, concert hall and community theater. They from an ascending segmented, gently curving, crown to the building. From the crest, the roof descends in a curve following the geometry of a torus of light cables, metal and glass structure toward the South. The tensile forces of the suspended glass roof of the foyer are counteracted by a series of cables tying down the structure to anchors at the entrance tarrace. The curved, segmented Northern walls are sheathed with stainless steel and punctuated by acid-etched, limestone colored, pre-cast concrete perpendicular walls. The theater facades are sheathed with beech wood panels forming continuous curved, stacked balconies. The various lounges form sculptural shapes visible under the glass foyer structure.

Firms involved with the project include:

Moshe Safdie & Associates, Architect
Nagata Acoustics
Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC)
BNIM Architects
JE Dunn Construction Company, General Contractor
MC Lioness Realty Group, LLC

[edit] Key events

1996—Initiation of planning.
October 6, 2006—Groundbreaking ceremony and festivities.
December, 2006—Construction begins.
December, 2009—Scheduled operations begin.