by Michael J. Crosbie

Overland Park, Kansas, is not quite the center of the United States, but you can just about see it from there. Less than ten miles south of Kansas City, Overland Park is a leafy college town, 167,000 strong, the state's second largest settlement after its close-by neighbor to the north.

Overland Park has made numerous lists as one of America's most livable cities, and now a brand-new museum on the campus of Johnson County Community College will only help to put the city on more lists — lists of cities that offer contemporary art museums that capture the spirit of contemporary art itself. The facility is the largest contemporary art museum in a four-state region and the only contemporary art museum in Kansas.

The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art is the design of Kyu Sung Woo Architects of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Woo's firm has a track record of academic work and art venues. (One of its current projects is the Asian Cultural Complex, a 1.4 million-square-foot (130,000-square-meter) urban-scale project in Gwangju, Korea.) The architect of record is Gould Evans, which designed the Regnier Center for Technology and Business, the building to which the museum attaches.   >>>

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SUBSCRIPTION SAMPLE The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kansas, was designed by Kyu Sung Woo Architects, with Gould Evans. Photo: Timothy Hursley, The Arkansas Office Extra Large Image The Nerman Museum is located on the campus of Johnson County Community College. Photo: Wonbo Woo   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.