Kansas City Skyline

Kansas City built its skyline in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and it built it in Art Deco. The Power and Light Building, finished in 1931, steps back in tiers to a crown that was once lit in changing colour and is again today. The Kansas City Power and Light District below it takes its name from the same building.

Deco setbacks are the defining feature of the silhouette, and they are the reason this skyline does not look like a modern one. Each step is a horizontal line across the tower, and getting those lines crisp at model scale is most of the work.

South of downtown, the Liberty Memorial tower rises on its own hill — a 217-foot limestone shaft built in the 1920s to commemorate the First World War, standing apart from the commercial cluster and visible across it.

Like Houston's Uptown, it is a piece of the city most models leave out, and like Houston's, it is part of what makes the view identifiable. One Kansas City Place provides the modern height at 623 feet, but the character comes from the Deco stepping and the lone memorial shaft.

One Kansas City Place leads at 623 feet with a pointed glass crown. Town Pavilion stands beside it, and the Power and Light Building — 1931, stepped, Art Deco, with a crown lit in changing colour — is the one that gives the skyline its era.

The Kansas City Power & Light District sits low beneath them. South and apart, on its own hill, the Liberty Memorial tower rises as a plain limestone shaft, built in the 1920s to commemorate the First World War and visible across the whole downtown. Most models leave it out; it is half of what makes the view recognisable.