When businessman Howard Vanderslice purchased a grand brick mansion on Warwick Boulevard in 1927 and gifted it to the Kansas City Art Institute, he had a vision. At a dinner the following year, he told students he hoped the art school would inspire them to give “to this city, in the forms of great marble and great canvases, the inspiration it has given them.”
Nearly a century later, that vision has come to life. Marble & Canvas, KCAI’s new on-campus retail store, opened its doors in early April inside Vanderslice Hall. The 900-square-foot space, formerly a cluster of offices and a narrow hallway, has been completely reimagined by Gabe York, the lead design consultant on the project. York, who is based in Kansas City, has a resume that stretches from Banana Republic and Anthropologie on the Plaza to Burberry’s U.S. expansion.
When KCAI president Peggy Shannon brought on York to lead the project, the brief was pretty open-ended. “They said, ‘We want to open a store, and we want to support alumni. And other than that, we don’t know,’” York says…