Kansas City revisited.....

When you visit the Country Club Plaza in KC there is a large fountain at the entrance to the area. It was created to honor the man Nichols who build the area. It is a large circular fountain with these small people riding backs of fish that are spraying water onto the large horse sculptures with riders. It makes a loud sound as there are four of these shooting water and the center piece is also spraying water.
This is one of the four large horses in the fountain. Behind that sculpture is a white church that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I assume it is one of those things he designed on paper but never visited, as he had done for a lot of his lesser commissions. There is meaning behind all of the horses in the fountain but I haven't researched it.
West of Des Moines, is a new mall called Jordan Creek Mall. It has been created to mimic the Country Club Plaza. The architecture of the area is highly restrictive to be of the Palladian Style though instead of the Spanish architecture. Palladio was a Venitian architect that created the arched windows and triangular capped towers. Some of it includes Greek influence in it's stle. All of the building in the mall area for miles around are all designed like this. Wal mart was forced to break rules and create a conforming facade. I guess Home Depot and Applebees did the same. They couldn't have their trade mark design. One filling station going up right now has Roman columns. It is actually a Casey's convenience store, gasoline, and they usually look like brick and barn structures. The restaurants from the Plaza are all now up here also.
We spent the last two days in downtown Des Moines viewing a large arts festival. Our capital city has spent a lot of money on the area and I think that the inspiration has come from cities like KC. Des Moines has come a long way from being a farmer's capital to being quite a busy, bustling city. We ate at a Spagetti Works downtown and the whole area was crowded on Friday night. The arts festival was inspiring for us as artist. We saw a lot of work that we liked and some that we scratched our heads over as to their merit to be in the show. It was way too hot for the event but was fun to attend. Thanks for reading......