New Bloch Executive Hall opens at UMKC

Henry Bloch at the podium during the celebration of the Bloch Executive Hall for Entrepreneurship.

To learn innovation and management, it seems best to do it in high style.

That was some of the thinking behind the Tuesday opening of the Henry W. Bloch Executive Hall for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UMKC.

Made possible by a $32 million gift from Bloch School of Management benefactor, Henry W. Bloch, it is adjacent to the Block school building.

In the new building are Bloch Education, the Regnier Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and graduate and executive classes.

Architects on the project were BNIM and Moore Ruble Yudell with a goal of what the university calls “state-of-the-art space architecture.”

Skylights flood the inside with natural light, rooms are fully wired for electronics with walls that can be moved and all of it seems wrapped with flowing curved walls.

UMKC also celebrated a new work of art as students and the public got their first look at the Henry W. and Marion Bloch sculpture. It is a tribute to the couple who have been major benefactors to business programs at UMKC, portraying them based on photos taken in their 60s.

The sculpture is the work of nationally known sculptor Eugene Daub. Daub has two other works in Kansas City: the Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery statues downtown.

Daub and his partner Dr. Rob Firmin also created a commemorative sculpture of Rosa Parks for the U.S. Capitol.

UMKC says the statue was commissioned nearly two years ago by Henry and Marion’s children, who wanted to commemorate their parents’ generosity and commitment to the Bloch School and to Kansas City.