DFW Tours! Dallas Art and Fort Worth Art

Dallas Arts District

The Dallas Arts District is a 60-acre site on the northwest edge of downtown Dallas.

Four architects of the Pritzker Architecture Prize are represented in the Dallas Arts District.

Renzo Piano the Nasher Sculpture Center (Pritzker Awardee Architect)
Rem Koolhaas the Wyly Theater Center (Pritzker Awardee Architect)
Norman Foster the Winspear Opera House (Pritzker Awardee Architect)
I.M. Pei – Meyerson Symphony Center (Pritzker Awardee Architect)
Edward Larrabee Barnes the 1980′s Dallas Museum of Art
Allied Works designed the addition to the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
Thom Mayne designed the Museum of Science and Nature

The Arts District opened in 1983. The twenty-five year development process has resulted in a diverse architectural district. Half of the land is in nonprofit or public ownership, and the other half consists of private development.

The Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art sit side by side.

The Nasher Sculpture Center is 55,000-square-foot building divided into five equal-sized, parallel pavilions. The Center contains a changing selection of works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection in both its indoor galleries and outdoor sculpture garden. (Prtizker Awardee Architect)

The Dallas Museum of Art moved to its new location in 1984. The collections doubled within seven years. Containing more than 17,000 objects, the museum is divided into five interdependent collections.

The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center is in the heart of the Dallas Arts District. The 2,066-seat hall has a cool limestone exterior with a warm interior, paneled and topped with a canopy of wood and onyx which may be raised or lowered to adjust the sound. Designed by I.M. Pei, it opened in 1989 at a cost of $106 million. (Prtizker Awardee Architect)

The Winspear Opera House opened in 2009. It completed the physical blueprint for downtown’s arts row. More than $300 million in gifts made that happen. (Prtizker Awardee Architect)

Wyly Theater Center

The 52-year-old Dallas Theater Center is an invigorated, more ambitious company under artistic director Kevin Moriarty, who led the move to the Arts District. The DTC’s annual budget has climbed by millions. (Pritzker Awardee Architect)

Other Points of Interest in the Dallas Arts District

The Crow Sculpture Garden

The sculpture has been replaced with large rocks. While the Crow Sculpture garden is nothing more than a commercial urban planting studded with rock the Crow Asian Museum remains.

The Asian Museum continues to be free of charge. Paintings, metal and stone, jade, scrolls and a sandstone facade from an 18th century Indian residence are included. Three galleries include the arts of Japan, the Chinese Galleries and a third gallery of Hindu sculpture and Indian architecture. The jade collection is noted from its carvings.

The second largest rock crystal sphere in the world sit on a silver stand engraved with images of two dragons.

The Trammel Crow Center is the tallest structure within the Arts District. Until February 2011, its gardens contained more than 20 bronze sculptures by Rodin, Maillol, Bourdelle, Wlerick and other French artists. They are now hidden away from public view, in a guarded and gated development located at the Old Southwestern Medical School.

The Arts Magnet High School provides special training in music, dance, drama and visual arts.

Also in the area are two interesting neo-gothic churches: the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe and St. Paul United Methodist Church.

The Belo Mansion is the only early Dallas residence in the downtown area. The classical revival mansion was built by Alfred H. Belo, a colonel in the Confederate Army and a prominent newspaper publisher. Today, it houses the offices of the Dallas Bar Association.

McKinney Trolley

McKinney Avenue is filled with delicious restaurants and the historic trolley 3.6 mile route is free! The streetcar connects with a free M-line trolley bus which proceeds down Ross to the West End and up Main Street returning to the Arts District streetcar.

Santiago Calatrava. Trinity River Bridge.

The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge will connect West Dallas and North Oak Cliff. It is currently under construction. This was intended to be the first of three “signature” bridges for Dallas, each with a unique design that combines distinct artistic elements with a functioning structure, employing unconventional materials and enhanced lighting. A second has been designed though funds are not available to build it. The third was never designed.

Steve Miller was a St. Mark’s School graduate in Dallas. Here is the Calatrava Bridge set to his music. Oops, his publisher does not participate in YouTube. So, no, not his music.

Calatrava Trinity River Bridge – Lee Ann Torrans Calatrava Trinity River Bridge – Lee Ann Torrans

- DFW Tours! What to See in Dallas and Fort Worth --

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