and just west of the Arts District. Then, in 2006, the merger of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, The Science Place, and the Dallas Children’s Museum established the Museum of Nature and Science at Fair Park. was desired, and although Frank Gehry was briefly associated with the project, he was not retained formally. A short list of four firms rose to the top of the 150 requests for qualifications received from architecture firms across the globe. Snøhetta, Shigeru Ban, the Polshek Partnership (now Ennead Architects), and Morphosis were interviewed and asked to present a public lecture at the Nasher Museum of Sculpture — a process Fulton described as “community vetting.” Despite their lack of museum experience, Morphosis was retained in 2008, and design work began in earnest on the 180,000-sf building with GFF as the associate architect. In that same year, Dallas’ indefatigable philanthropic community once again stepped forward to make a major cultural project a reality. The largest of numerous eight-figure donations was gifted by the five children of Ross and Margot Perot, who presented $50 million to the museum in honor of their parents. Thus, the new building was re-named the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, and its historic home was similarly designated as the Perot Museum of Nature and Science at Fair Park. The Fair Park facilities will remain open as both a museum and a home for the museum’s scientific research, collection storage, and conservation activities. The major feature of the Perot site is the elevated Woodall Rodgers Freeway, a frequently congested, eight-lane highway carrying over 150,000 cars daily, which forms the length of the property’s southeastern edge. The site is bound on the northeast by Field Street, a six-lane thoroughfare and major gateway to Dallas’ central business district, and on the northwest by an apartment complex. A parking lot, situated to the southeast of the museum property, provides for a possible site for future expansion. Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Morphosis, based in the archetypal car-culture city of Los Angeles, takes an unapologetic approach to the automobile in the design of the Perot. The building’s siting, mass-
A signature architect
The building’s siting, massing, and texture all acknowledge that the first experience with the Perot is essentially from the inside of an automobile. ing, and texture all acknowledge that the first experience with the Perot is essentially from the inside of an automobile. Yet, unlike the extravagant geometry associated with the firm’s large body of work, the Perot is relatively clear in its formal organization. According to Aleksander Tamm-Seitz, senior project designer with Morphosis, the top of the undulating podium that rises gently from the earth was set purposely at the same elevation as the freeway. “The cubic volume, which sits atop the podium, grew out of the museum’s desire for an iconic, yet extremely efficient, structure,” said Tamm-Seitz. The varied precast concrete panels that clad the facades were inspired by the exposed geological strata of the Texas landscape. The most prominent feature is a cantilevered, glazed escalator that forms a dramatic diagonal across the highway-facing southeastern facade. There is little fenestration; daylight is provided to the interior through the escalator, and via a vertical opening formed by a glazed corner and a series of horizontal apertures at the top level. Although the four levels that rise from the undulating podium are rectilinear, the building has a kinetic head-turning quality when viewed
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This page The otherworldly, kinetic form of the Perot commands attention from the adjacent freeway as it erupts from the podium. The sinuous parti is evident in this early sketch.
while in motion, from the car. It’s easy to imagine children in backseats clamoring, “Can we go there!” Indeed, such engagement with the target audience might rightfully be considered a functional imperative. There is a dedicated plaza, entry, and driveway for the over 2,000 daily visitors arriving by school bus. And the Perot does sit within reasonable walking distance of two light rail stations, with a future line and station planned immediately to the west. The majority of public parking is placed under the aforementioned elevated freeway. But any semblance of a distinct entry sequence is absent until one reaches the grounds of the museum proper. The building’s generous entrance plaza contrasts the street-hugging nature of
the rest of the podium. Dallas-based landscape architects Talley Associates designed a series of park-like spaces enhanced by interactive play areas to complement the covered, gently sloping walkway, which leads up one level to the event plaza. Here, the building’s low plinth edges provide a curved enclosure, which screens views of the highway and re-orients the visitor to the glazed entry. Another salient feature of the landscape architecture is partially revealed at the entry level: the impressive one-acre undulating green and fractured-stone roof, an exhibit in its own right. Talley Associates designed the planting scheme as an abstract cross section of Texas ecology. Rainwater features dramatize the experience of the roof and feed two large underground cisterns. These elements combine with water harvested elsewhere on the site and from HVAC condensation to satisfy 74 percent of the museum’s non-potable water needs and 100 percent of the landscape’s irrigation needs.