Science Place - Texas Centennial Exposition Buildings (1936--1937) - Dallas, TX - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

"Fomerly called the Health and Science Museum, it is now known as the Science Place and Planetarium. It also houses WRR-FM. It is on the north side of Centennial Drive near the eastern edge of the Park."

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"Science Place I, facing the middle of the lagoon, its back to Second Avenue, was originally built in 1936 as the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. This building, like the Natural History Museum beside it, was constructed in the "classic modern" style with native Texas Cordova cream limestone. Red granite was used for the base of the building. Costing $400,000, it was the most costly of the buildings in this complex. Among its features are front and rear doors decorated with metal panels. Those on the side of the museum facing Second Avenue are of human figures painting and sculpting. The doors facing the lagoon feature Texas plant life.

In 1936, when it first opened, the building housed some $10 million worth of fine works of art. Over the years the collection increased in size and value. In 1984, the museum moved to a larger, more modern facility the newly-designated "Arts District" of downtown Dallas.

As Science Place I, the building showcased a wide variety of permanent and special exhibits that offer visitors, the majority of whom are school children, the opportunity for a "hands-on" museum experience. One of the most popular seems to be the museum's robotic dinosaurs.

In June 2006 the Science Museum was merged with the Dallas Children's Museum and the Natural History Museum to form a single entity, the Museum of Science and Nature. On December 1, 2012 the MSN will be reopened in downtown Dallas as the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, leaving the original buildings in Fair Park abandoned and empty for the first time since 1936."