The Kansas City Public Library’s Central Branch occupies the 1906 First National Bank Building at 14 W 10th Street in downtown-kc. Renovated and reopened in April 2004 after a $50.2 million adaptive-reuse project, it is best known for the community-bookshelf — 22 giant book spines wrapping the south facade of the adjacent parking garage — one of Kansas City’s most photographed landmarks.

History

The Kansas City Public Library was founded on December 5, 1873, making it one of the oldest public library systems in the region. It began as a modest collection organized by the Kansas City Board of Education, which arranged a lecture series as a fundraiser to purchase books. Carrie Westlake Whitney, hired as the first librarian in 1881, transformed the institution over the following three decades: she established free lending, built a children’s literacy program, oversaw the construction of two purpose-built main library facilities, and opened the first branch — the Westport Branch — in 1899.

Through the 20th century the library system grew to serve communities across Kansas City, Independence, and Sugar Creek. By 2000 the system’s leadership saw an opportunity to anchor the library in one of downtown’s most important historic structures: the vacant First National Bank Building at 10th and Baltimore.

The $50.2 million renovation, with HNTB as principal architect, began in 2001 and was completed in April 2004. The Central Branch’s opening anchored a broader revival of the surrounding blocks, which became known as the Library District — a cluster of pre-World War II buildings subsequently converted to lofts, condos, restaurants, and small businesses. The Library District was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today the Kansas City Public Library system operates the Central Library alongside nine neighborhood branches, a digital branch, and a bookmobile, serving a community of more than 250,000.

The building

The First National Bank Building was designed by the Kansas City firm Wilder & Wight — which later became Wight & Wight, the architects of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art — and completed in 1906. The structure is one of the finest examples of Neoclassical commercial architecture in the gilded-age-kc downtown core. Its street facade is defined by six Ionic columns of white Georgia marble, each 34 feet tall and weighing approximately 48 tons, flanking a pair of 13-foot bronze entrance doors of elaborate decorative ironwork.

The interior banking hall was preserved through the 2004 renovation with much of its original character intact: polished marble floors, intricate plasterwork, and a fireplace in what was the bank president’s room. One of the original bank vaults was converted into the Durwood Film Vault, a 28-seat screening room that presents free films to the public.

Community Bookshelf

The community-bookshelf is the large-scale installation wrapping the south facade of the Central Library’s parking garage at 10th Street and Wyandotte. It consists of 22 oversized book spines, each approximately 26 feet tall and 9 feet wide, printed on 3M Scotchprint material and mounted on an aluminum substructure across the length of the garage wall.

The design was created by Kansas City architecture firm BNIM in collaboration with 360 Architecture (now HOK), which designed the 480-car garage itself. The book titles were chosen through a community process in which area residents submitted roughly 100 suggestions by mail, fax, and email. The selection committee required that each choice have some Kansas City connection or reflect a classic work across a range of genres. The final list of 22 spines — representing 42 titles in total — was announced on March 16, 2004, and the installation was completed later that fall.

Featured titles range from To Kill a Mockingbird and Charlotte’s Web to Kansas City–connected works such as Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge and Buck O’Neil’s memoir I Was Right on Time. The Bookshelf has become one of the city’s most recognized civic images, appearing routinely in tourism materials and photography of downtown Kansas City.

Collections and services

The Missouri Valley Room, located on the fifth floor of the Central Branch, is the library system’s primary special-collections repository for Kansas City history. Its holdings include original manuscripts, published materials, newspaper clippings, postcards, photographs, maps, and city directories spanning the city’s earliest settlement to the present. It is considered one of the most complete local-history research collections in the region.

The Central Branch also provides public programming, digital services, and meeting and event space throughout the historic building. Admission to all public collections and most programming is free.

See also

Sources

See also

Categories
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