This story originally ran in The Dallas Morning News on May 18, 2007.
The Museum of Nature & Science has gone global in its search for an architect for its new building at Woodall Rodgers and Field Street.
The short list, released Thursday, includes Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne, winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize; Shigeru Ban of Tokyo; the Polshek Partnership from New York; and the Norwegian firm Snohetta. Several board members lobbied to have a Dallas architect on the short list as well, particularly since locals were shut out in the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts competition six years ago, but that didn't happen.
"We gave serious consideration to local architects," says CEO Nicole Small, "but we also felt that we needed an experienced firm that would design an environmentally sensitive building, using creative engineering and technology, that would tell the story on the outside that the exhibits tell on the inside."
Each of the finalists has designed major museums and institutional buildings. Mr. Mayne's firm, Morphosis, is responsible for the California Science Center in Los Angeles; Shigeru Ban designed the Paper Art Museum in Mishima, Japan. The Polshek Partnership produced both the Rose Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Ark. Snohetta, headed by University of Texas graduate Craig Dykers, designed the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt.
The competition format will be similar to that for the DCPA. Between June 11 and June 20 each architect will deliver a public lecture at the Nasher Sculpture Center, showcasing his work and preliminary concepts. The winner will be announced in the fall and paired with exhibition designer Ralph Appelbaum.
The Museum of Nature & Science was born in 2006 from a merger of the Dallas Museum of Natural History, The Science Place and the Dallas Children's Museum. The search for an architect, however, began five years earlier with the hiring of Frank Gehry to produce a conceptual design. That partnership dissolved when fundraising stalled. The museum is now embarked on a $150 million capital campaign, of which it has raised $30 million.
There is no target date for an opening.
David Dillon is an architecture writer in Amherst, Mass.
