Amaze Your Brain

Perot Museum of Nature and Science inspires minds

Just north of downtown Dallas sits a gray cube with a summit of 170 feet. A mysterious glass prism rests along the concrete exterior. The rectangular tube is reminiscent of a teeter-totter, as roughly one-third of the long glass box hangs off the side of the building’s primary structure.

The architecture adds a dash of modern art to passersby, but the building offers far more than its external facade. The 180,000-square-foot cube houses 11 halls of permanent exhibits intended for a broad audience of any age. Named for Ross and Margot Perot, whose children made a $50 million gift in their honor, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science will hopefully become your next must-see.

“The Perot Museum of Nature and Science is a gift to the city of Dallas,” said Morphosis Architects’ Thom Mayne, the 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate as well as the designer of the museum. “It is a fundamentally public building — a building that opens up, belongs to and activates the city. It is a place of exchange. It contains knowledge, preserves information and transmits ideas; ultimately, the public is as integral to the museum as the museum is to the city…

By Katy Cranfill
Find the full article on page 37 of the March 2013 Wacoan magazine