Kansas City, Mo. – The Kansas City Museum is pleased to announce that it is working with acclaimed artist Summer Wheat (American, b. 1977) and Kansas City-based International Architects Atelier (IAA) to create JewelHouse, a monumental, site-responsive artwork and pioneering architectural intervention that reimagines the museum’s former Beaux-Arts conservatory. The project, which centers and celebrates the stories and contributions of women, is in the final design phase. A groundbreaking date and timeline for completion is forthcoming.
Built in 1910 to store plants in the winter and modified in the early 1950s to create a planetarium, the conservatory will be restored and renovated to its original architecture with new glass, bronze, and mosaic contemporary artworks by Summer Wheat integrated into the exterior and interior of the building. Wheat’s design draws on the building’s history and signature Beaux Arts style while forging a new meaning and use for the space.
As part of a broad initiative to reinvigorate and renovate the Kansas City Museum’s grounds, Wheat will transform the conservatory into a jewel box of a space to be used by the public for meditative reflection in addition to hosting a robust slate of programming that promotes gender equity, empowerment, health, and well-being. JewelHouse will create a new type of conservatory where stories and relationships will be collected, grown, shared, fortified, and protected.
Summer Wheat is known for her vibrant paintings, multifaceted sculptures, and immersive installations that weave together the histories of materiality, figuration, and abstraction in both fine art and craft milieus. Each series engages collective experiences and collapses boundaries between artwork and viewer. Continuing Wheat’s efforts to integrate the viewer into her practice, JewelHouse will incorporate intricate details echoing the earliest forms of storytelling to create a contemplative and immersive experience through shape, color, and pattern. Inspired by meditative architectural spaces such as Austin (2015) by Ellsworth Kelly, the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence (1947–51) by Henri Matisse, and the Rothko Chapel (1971) by Mark Rothko, JewelHouse builds on these historical references while establishing its own precedent. The project serves as a rare standalone architectural intervention created by—and in support of—women.
JewelHouse’s doorway is adorned by Summer Wheat’s iconic female Water Bearer, a recurring motif honoring women’s labor and nourishment. The figure symbolically places women as the guides and leaders of the space. Upon entering JewelHouse, visitors will be engaged by several colorful interventions in stained-glass, bronze, and marble. Jewel-toned glass panels will depict flowers and coiled snakes; bronze elements will decorate the exterior and interior walls along with the restored roof, and a mosaic of black, white, and gold encloses the floor’s perimeter. Wheat’s colorful and vibrant designs are manifold throughout its construction, creating a meditative and mesmerizing viewing experience. “Wheat’s JewelHouse will transform the space to engage vast and intimate connections between people, nature, and the cosmos…Being inside this immersive space simulates a firmament, or the vaulted celestial sphere referencing Earth and the heavens—an external and internal space that reinforces the nurturing yet questioning and inquisitive premise of the structure,” stated Erin Dziedzic, Director of Curatorial Affairs at Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO, which organized Wheat’s solo exhibition, “Summer Wheat: Blood, Sweat, and Tears” in 2020.
JewelHouse will serve as a space for inclusive history and humanities education, public programs, and events. The curriculum will be developed using restorative practices as a methodology to center the often-untold stories of women across generations. Educational and public programs will include storytelling, spoken word presentations, oral history recordings, collecting initiatives, music concerts, and dance performances, as well as panel discussions, summits, and workshops.
In addition to this regular programming, the Kansas City Museum, in collaboration with Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, will create opportunities for youth mentorship and leadership experiences that reinforce a shared humanity and aim to create a more inclusive future. JewelHouse will serve as a bridge between two Kansas City cultural institutions that celebrate local stories and create access to meaningful art experiences throughout the city. This institutional programmatic alliance will provide a new pathway for innovative collaboration that mobilizes resources with the community.
To date, the project has garnered immense support from across the country. Recently, a $150,000 matching challenge grant, established by the Girlfriend Fund in Boston, Massachusetts, was completed through generous contributions by the Wells Fargo Foundation and the Women’s Art Fund of Charlotte, North Carolina, culminating in a total of more than $300,000.
To learn more about JewelHouse, visit kansascitymuseum.org/jewelhouse.
