Last Updated on March 12, 2024
On March 12, 2024, The Rabbit hOle, a multi-sensory, literary wonderland more than eight years in the making, opened to the public. Located in a 100-year-old warehouse in North Kansas City, Missouri, The Rabbit hOle will provide visitors of all ages with immersive experiences featuring beloved books, including Goodnight Moon, Last Stop on Market Street, Madeline, Strega Nona, Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, Frog and Toad Together and many more.
While The Rabbit hOle will never be “finished,” continually adding exhibits and expanding into additional floors of its four-story, 150,000-square-foot building, reaching this milestone has required multiple phases of construction and fundraising, with The Rabbit hOle itself assembling an in-house team of more than two dozen staff to design and build all of its exhibits.
“Most museums hire an external company to create their exhibits,” co-founder Pete Cowdin said. “Because of the responsibility we have to the authors, illustrators, and estates whose work we are creating experiences around, we have invested in a growing team of nearly two dozen artists and fabricators to bring more than a century of children’s books to life.”
Whether a tiger carousel inspired by Sam and the Tigers or the dragon from My Father’s Dragon flying around the first floor’s grand staircase, The Rabbit hOle’s team has realized a wide range of exhibit elements and required an equally imaginative architecture partner, which it found in Multistudio.
The national design studio has been a proud partner of The Rabbit hOle since 2018 and has been instrumental in helping The Rabbit hOle transform the site from warehouse to wonderland.
“We asked for a lot of considerations, back-and-forth, and problem-solving that were outside the norm,” co-founder Deb Pettid said. “Multistudio has been a patient and creative partner in helping us realize an unprecedented architectural space to match our unique vision for the museum’s exhibits and bespoke programming areas.”
Alongside its exhibits, The Rabbit hOle will also include a full-service bookstore, print shop, story lab, maker space, resource library, and discovery gallery. These areas will offer a variety of arts and literature-based programming, professional development workshops for educators, field trips, and special events with authors and illustrators from around the country.
“Access to literary resources and experiences should be fundamental to every community,” Robert Riccardi, Principal at Multistudio, said. “The Rabbit hOle will have a profound impact on our city. Our team has been thrilled to help execute the vision of Deb Pettid and Pete Cowdin.”
Uniting book lovers, literacy advocates, writers, artists, and educators, The Rabbit hOle will transform Kansas City into a national epicenter celebrating the history and culture of children’s literature.
“The Rabbit hOle is a singular destination that’ll be spoken of as near-legend on local playgrounds and shared between the young-at-heart as a you’ve-gotta-go-there experience—a recommendation passed between friends like a gift,” Jay Holley, Vice President at Multistudio, said. “It’s been immensely rewarding to help the artists inside the hOle realize this museum of children’s literature in North Kansas City that’s sure to surprise, delight, and educate visitors of all ages.”
About The Rabbit hOle
The Rabbit hOle’s mission is to create a living culture around literature that will nourish, empower, and inspire the reading lives of children and adults. Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid, longtime proprietors of the beloved Reading Reptile children’s bookstore in Kansas City, claim to have conceived and co-founded The Rabbit hOle as an artist-driven nonprofit in 2015, but the truth is, Fox Rabbit began this journey much earlier…but that’s another story!
About Multistudio
Multistudio is an employee-owned, nationally recognized practice based in Lawrence, Kansas City, New Orleans, Phoenix, and San Francisco. Multistudio collaboratively expands the practice of architecture, brand experience, city design, education design, and interiors to solve the complex needs of our clients and communities.
