Case Study: Kansas City High School Gym & Lab, Kansas

The classically-designed masonry gymnasium building is all that remains of the historic Kansas City High School.

The Kansas City High School Gymnasium and Laboratory is once again hosting athletic matches. Built in 1923, the Gymnasium and Laboratory building housed the double-height gymnasium, swimming pool, locker rooms, and the physics, chemistry and home economic labs for the high school, located across the street.

After the high school was destroyed by a fire in 1934 and rebuilt elsewhere in the city, the Classical Revival-style gymnasium building was turned over to the Kansas City Junior College, which used the building until the college relocated in the 1960s. In subsequent years the gym was owned by a church and the Boilermakers Union, which used it for offices and a training facility.

Following a $1 million rehabilitation, the facility now houses classroom space and an indoor soccer facility. Many of the building’s original features have been retained, such as the floor plan, doors, stairs, windows, lockers, trophy case, the gymnasium’s bleachers and its tongue and groove maple floor. The wood floor was covered with a removable artificial turf system so it could be used as indoor soccer fields. The pool also remains in situ, covered with a plywood floor system and artificial turf for use as a soccer gym.