In 2010, welders worked on the supports on the front of the Kauffman Center, which were later covered in glass.
Keith Myers
KEITH MYERS/Kansas City Star
You can watch how engineers, architects and construction crews built the Kauffman Center on TV, airing over the weekend.
The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts will be featured on the Smithsonian Channel’s “How Did They Build That?”
“How Did They Build That?” first aired in 2021, showcasing “incredible feats of engineering and features architectural wonders from all over the world.”
The show airs on at 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 13, on the Smithsonian Channel, available on Paramount+ and some cable providers.
The episode description said, “A new performance center with a tent-like glass-and-steel lobby tests engineers in Kansas City.” Crews broke ground on Moshe Safdie designed-structure in 2006, and finished the structure in 2011.
Take a look back:
In 2008, an architectural rendering stood in front of the Kauffman Center’s construction site. DAVID EULITT DAVID EULITT
In September 2009, The Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts neared its halfway point about two years from completion. Mike Ransdell Mike Ransdell
In December 2009, the last beam of The Kauffman Center was placed. JOHN SLEEZER JOHN SLEEZER/KANSAS CITY STAR
In 2011, a stone carver smoothed out the recessed areas of the individual letters of “Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts” on the front entrance of the new building. JILL TOYOSHIBA/Kansas City Star JILL TOYOSHIBA/Kansas City Star
Eleanor Nash is a service journalism reporter at The Star. She covers transportation, local oddities and everything else residents need to know. A Kansas City native and graduate of Wellesley College, she previously worked at The Myrtle Beach Sun News in South Carolina and at KCUR.
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