>
AGENCY will be contributing an ongoing feature on architecture and urbanism to the new online news source, KC Free Press. Look for our analysis in the weeks ahead.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Over the last 75 years, Kansas City has transformed from a dense, walkable, urban fabric to one that focuses on the ease of commute and commerce afforded by the automobile and its various urban proxies. Parking decks, garages, and surface lots are matched only by lanes of limited access highway in providing a recognizable image of the city. Historic landmarks, office buildings, and notable centers of exchange and commerce have slowly given way to the needs of the car and the exurban commuter, demolished to provide space to house the increasing number of cars visiting the city each day.
While the slow degradation of Kansas City’s urban core is nothing new to the American city, here it is hyperbolically intertwined with the history and future of automobile culture, creating truly unique forms of urban interaction unforeseen by the planners of pedestrian cities centuries ago.
