39.0997°N / 94.5786°W · United States
Kansas City began with a ledge of rock. On the south bank of the Missouri, a shelf of stone made a natural landing for steamboats, and the first town was laid out around it; the river still bends hard at the top of this sheet, just where the streets come down to meet it.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
The Missouri crosses the top of the sheet in a broad band of water, bending sharply round a loop of flat land on its far bank, where the long shapes of the downtown airport lie inside the bend. On the near bank, the streets come down to meet the water at the top of downtown, and just below them a ring of motorways closes the centre in a tight rectangle, with the engraved point inside it. At the left, the Kansas River comes in from the lower left to join the Missouri; across it lies another city with the same name, in another state.
South of the centre, the grid opens up. Long boulevards, drawn as heavier streets, run between patches of green, the largest of them Penn Valley Park, just below the motorways, with a pond inside it; further down, the green comes in smaller pieces, parks and wooded slopes between the streets. The bluffs above the river have no relief on this map, and the rail yards that fill the low ground along both rivers are drawn too pale to read.
Water is the strongest shape here, a broad river bending across the top: give it an ink deep enough to hold the bend against the dense streets of the centre. The airport inside the bend is mostly open land crossed by long strokes, and a background close to the paper keeps it quiet. Green comes in patches south of the centre; a mid-toned green lets the parks read as the stations of the boulevards. The ring of motorways is the darkest stroke of the drawing, and it can stay that way.
Portrait, on the engraved point, which sits inside the ring of motorways: the Missouri and its bend along the top, the airport inside the bend, the Kansas River at the left edge, and the parks and boulevards in the lower half. The rest of the boulevard system runs on beyond the bottom of the sheet. Pull back and the river’s whole loop enters, but the centre shrinks to a knot of motorways; come closer and the old riverfront streets sharpen, at the cost of the parks.
The title, one line under it, the coordinates. The map writes no names, and here that matters: two cities share this one. The caption can settle which Kansas City is yours.
Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.
Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.
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A natural rock ledge on the south bank of the Missouri made an excellent steamboat landing. In November 1838 a group of investors bought the land around it, intending to use the landing and its surroundings as a business settlement, and in early 1839 John C. McCoy, the city’s first surveyor, platted the Town of Kansas. On the sheet, its streets are the ones that come down to the river at the top of downtown, on the near side of the bend.
In 1893 George Kessler drew up the city’s Plan for Parks and Boulevards, a scheme that launched the idea of a comprehensive system of parks and boulevards to guide and coordinate the city’s growth. It set out three major parks, Penn Valley among them, several community parks, two boulevards crossing the city from east to west and two running north to south. On the sheet, it is the pattern of long boulevards and green patches south of the centre, with Penn Valley Park the largest green near downtown.
In 1927 the Kansas City Municipal Airport was dedicated immediately north of the Missouri, across the river from downtown; for its site at the meeting of the Kansas and the Missouri, it had first been called Peninsula Field. Commercial flights moved to the new Kansas City International Airport in November 1972. It covers 695 acres today: the long shapes and straight runways on the far bank, held inside the loop of the river.
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| Delivered to | In transit | In total |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | 5 to 7 working days | 6 to 12 working days |
| United Kingdom | 2 to 3 working days | 3 to 8 working days |
| United States | 4 to 6 working days | 5 to 11 working days |
| Canada | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
| Australia | National delivery | Given at dispatch |
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Take the bend of the river, the centre held tight by its motorways, the long boulevards and the parks they lead to: that is Kansas City on paper. Then add the one street that made it home.
Compose my Kansas City poster
