Susan Richards Johnson recently received the Architect of the Year Award from the American Institute of Architects Kansas City chapter for her role in improving the quality of the built environment in Kansas City.
Susan Richard Johnson & Associates, Inc. is a woman-owned, full service firm with extensive experience in historic restoration and renovation, adaptive re-use, and planning and construction for residential and commercial construction.
It’s no wonder, then, that her offices are located on the 11th floor of the historic Scarritt building at 818 Grand. Described as “a direct representative of turn of the century preoccupation with natural light,” the exterior facades exemplify some of the finest, intricately molded ornamentation in the country today.
Light streams into her office from all sides, and the 14-feet ceilings adorned with plaster moldings all have been completely renovated with Johnson at the helm.
What interesting projects have you recently completed or have on the drawing board for 2010?
We are under contract with the National Parks Service, Midwest office, to do their historic structures within the national parks. We also have just been selected to be part of a team for the Liberty Memorial project that involves stone assessment, security and other issues.
We’re also really excited about a project we just finished up – the Women’s Leadership Fountain at 9th and Paseo. You wouldn’t have ever known it was a fountain if you saw it before hand, it was just like a rock pile when we started. Now we brought it back to life, and it’s been commemorated to women. It’s kind of cool to have a “girl fountain” in Kansas City. We also restored other monuments within the three-block area (the Meyer Monument, The Terrace and Fitzsimon’s Memorial)
What do you enjoy most about your niche?
Saving something that has been so dilapidated, and being able to help revitalize, it’s really a form of creating. It makes you feel wonderful, like you’re filling that gap of lost history. I’m not a “pure preservation person,” in that it’s all about taking it back to the original use. I’m more of an “adaptive re-use” person, like this building I’m in, for example, which we did most of the work here around 1995. My office is the original law library of Judge Scarritt back in the early 1900s.
It’s been a tough year for architects. What’s next year hold for you?
I’ve been very, very blessed and lucky because preservation project have not been cut. And while people might not have the funding for new, they are thinking about fixing something they already have. There’s a rise in renovation projects. And the big incentive is that both the state of Missouri and the federal government have rehabilitation tax credits people can take advantage of, which is a huge economic tool. They can get funding up to 45 percent if they take advantage of both taxes.
You obviously love old buildings. Where did that love come from, and do you live in a historic home in Kansas City?
I live in Coleman Highlands in a home built in 1915 that at one time was owned by Truman, although he never lived in it. It’s a two-story, native stone and stucco house with a green, clay tile roof. It’s very eclectic inside with plaster walls and hardwood floors.
When I was at KU, I selected a minor in historic preservation and started studying the Renaissance and Baroque. I was so enamored with the details of old building and the expression of volume, the cathedrals and just their scale and the light coming in. It was just that feeling of “awe.”