Dome

Lateral portico, south elevation, east side; The building was designed by prominent Kansas City architects Wight and Wight (who also designed the approaches to the Liberty Memorial and the Kansas governor's mansion, Cedar Crest). Ground was broken in 1930, and the museum opened on December 11, 1933. The building's classical Beaux-Arts architecture style was modeled on the Cleveland Museum of Art. Thomas Wight, the brother who did most of the design work for the building said: "We are building the museum on classic principles because they have been proved by the centuries. A distinctly American principle appropriate for such a building may be developed, but, so far, everything of that kind is experimental. One doesn’t experiment with two-and-a-half million dollars." A third of the west wing was left unfinished when the building opened. Part of it was completed in 1941. The rest of the building was completed after World War II. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 7/8/2010)