Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is Kansas City’s cultural crown jewel and one of the best reasons to visit the city at all. Its collection runs from ancient Egypt to contemporary art, with particular strengths in Chinese painting and sculpture, European old masters, American art and photography, and general admission is free for everyone. The museum has two very different buildings. The original, a stately neoclassical temple from the 1930s, holds most of the historic collections in grand galleries off a great hall. The Bloch Building, a series of glowing glass volumes designed by Steven Holl that steps down the east side of the lawn, houses contemporary art, photography and the special exhibitions. Outside, the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park spreads across the grounds, and its best-known residents are four giant shuttlecocks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, scattered as if the museum were the net in a game of badminton. Note the schedule before you go: the museum closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and stays open late on Thursday and Friday evenings, which are the best times for a calm visit.

Start with the old building. The great hall leads to galleries of European painting with works by masters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Monet, while the Asian art galleries are among the finest in the country, including a celebrated Chinese temple room and a deep collection of paintings and ceramics. The American galleries trace the country’s art from colonial portraits to the twentieth century, and there are strong holdings of African, Indigenous American and ancient art. You will not see it all in a day, so pick two or three areas and give them your full attention.

Then cross to the Bloch Building, whose translucent glass lets daylight filter into the galleries below ground and makes the whole wing glow at night. This is where the photography collection, contemporary art and most ticketed special exhibitions live; current shows have included American Prospects and Landscape Photography, 1839 to Today, and Form and Flow: Contemporary Shanshui Landscapes. Special exhibitions may carry a charge even though general admission is free.

Leave time for the grounds. The sculpture park is free and open even when the galleries are closed, and the lawn with its shuttlecocks is one of the most photographed spots in the city. The museum sits on the edge of the Country Club Plaza district, so a Plaza stroll and dinner make a natural pairing. Hours: Saturday to Monday from 10 am to 5 pm, Thursday and Friday from 10 am to 9 pm, and closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Parking is in a paid garage beneath the museum, and several bus routes stop nearby.