| The architecture of Hoit, Price & Barnes defined mainstream architecture in Kansas City during the peak of the city's resources and aspirations. This study examines their work within the context of the city's social history and early twentieth century American architecture by looking at drawings and sketches, contemporary sources, and the buildings in situ..;In 1901, Van Brunt & Howe recruited Henry F. Hoit and William Cutler to work on the Varied Industries Palace for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. After the fair under the partnership of Howe, Hoit & Cutler, they designed the city's most prestigious ecclesiastical buildings, including B'nai Jehudah Synagogue and Linwood Boulevard Christian Church. Within the residential enclaves of the city's progressive parks and boulevards system, the firm designed domiciles ranging from multi-family apartments to the city's most prestigious houses. Hoit opened the spaces in the plans of modest houses and later designed the Braley and Nelson residences.;Howe, Hoit & Cutler began an architect-patron relationship with industrialist Robert Alexander Long, who aspired toward monumental architecture. They designed the R. A. Long Building, the downtown headquarters of the Long-Bell Company and Long's church's new building, the Independence Boulevard Christian Church. After the deaths of his partners, Henry F. Hoit designed Long's personal residences---Corinthian Hall and Longview Farm. Demonstrating the boldness of Long's ambitions, Hoit designed a complex of buildings for the Christian Church Hospital and the city square of Long's planned community of Longview, Washington; both projects were truncated.;After World War I, Henry Hoit added two young partners, Edwin Price and Alfred Barnes, and Hoit, Price & Barnes thrived amidst the powerful Pendergast machine and its rule over the construction industry and Missouri politics. During this era of corporate consolidation, the firm distinguished the city's skyline with the Southwestern Bell Telephone Building, the Fidelity Bank Building, and the Kansas City Power & Light Building. During the 1930s, they secured work on the Municipal Auditorium, which Architectural Record lauded as "one of the 10 best buildings of the world" in 1936. The Municipal Auditorium was their last major building before the firm dissolved in 1941. |
