Perot Museum of Nature and Science
Perot Museum of Nature and Science
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Perot Museum of Nature and Science

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science (shortened to Perot Museum) is a natural history and science museum in Dallas, Texas, in Victory Park. The museum was named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot. The current chief executive officer of the museum is Dr. Linda Abraham-Silver.

On June 6, 1936, the Dallas Museum of Natural History opened to the public as part of the Texas Centennial Exposition. On September 20, 1946, the Dallas Health Museum was founded by a group chartered as the Dallas Academy of Medicine. It was renamed the Dallas Health and Science Museum in 1958. The name was changed yet again to the Science Place in 1981. In 1995, the Dallas Children's Museum was founded elsewhere.

In 2006, Perot Museum CEO Nicole Small oversaw the uniting of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, the Science Place, and the Dallas Children's Museum at Fair Park. Following the merger, the museum was in three buildings there, featuring an IMAX-style theater, a planetarium, an extensive exhibit hall, and its own paleontology lab. The museum moved on December 1, 2012, to a new facility in Victory Park.

On June 1, 2014, CEO Small was replaced by Colleen Walker.

Walker resigned as CEO in 2017, and was replaced in 2017 by Linda Abraham-Silver.

The Victory Park campus museum was named in honor of Margot and Ross Perot as the result of a $50,000,000 gift made by their adult children Ross Perot, Jr., Nancy Perot Mulford, Suzanne Perot McGee, Carolyn Perot Rathjen, and Katherine Perot Reeves. The $185,000,000 fundraising goal, slated to provide for the site acquisition, exhibition planning and design, construction of the new building, education programs and an endowment, was achieved by November 2011, more than a year before the museum's scheduled opening in December 2012. The donated funds enabled the museum to be built, incurring no debt or public funding.

The 180,000-square-foot (17,000 m2) facility has six floors and stands about 14 stories high. Five of the floors are accessible to the public and house 11 permanent exhibit halls as well as 6 learning labs. The top floor houses the museum's administration offices. The Victory Park campus opened its doors to the public on December 1, 2012. Approximately 6,000 visitors came to the museum on its first day of operation.

Designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis Architects, the building was conceived as a large cube floating over a landscaped plinth (or base).

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