Designed to reflect and embody the mission of the Museum and enrich the city’s evolving urban and cultural fabric, sale the Perot
Perot Museum – Mark Knight Photography
Museum of Nature and Science will open Saturday, here December 1, patient 2012, at 10 a.m. in Dallas, Texas. Opening weekend kicks off at 9:30 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by extended hours from 10 a.m. to midnight that day, and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, December 2.Designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects, the Dallas museum has been named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot, the result of a $50-million gift made by their adult children.
The building is conceived as a large cube floating over a landscaped plinth (or base) and is designed to inspire awareness of science through an immersive and interactive environment that actively engages visitors. Conceived by the architects in collaboration with Dallas-based landscape architects, Talley Associates, the plinth is landscaped with an acre of rolling roofscape comprised of rock and native drought-resistant grasses that reflects Texas’s indigenous landscape and demonstrates a living system that will evolve naturally over time. Because its mission is to “inspire minds through nature and science,” the Perot Museum fully embraces the natural world and the manmade world, focusing on earth and space sciences, life and natural sciences, chemistry, physical sciences and engineering. The new building itself becomes an active tool for science education. By integrating architecture, nature, and technology, the building demonstrates scientific principles and will be used as a teaching tool that provides “living” examples of engineering, sustainability and technology at work.
The 180,000-square-foot museum will feature five floors of public space with 11 permanent exhibit halls, including a children’s museum complete with outdoor play space/courtyard, and a state-of-the-art hall designed to host world-class traveling exhibitions. Other highlights include an expansive glass-enclosed lobby and adjacent rooftop deck; a multi-media, 3D digital cinema with seating for 298; a flexible-space auditorium; a Café; and a Museum Shop.
The Perot Museum is located at 2201 N. Field Street in Dallas, Texas. For more information about the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, visitperotmuseum.org or call 214.428.5555.
