Leading into the near-north district known as Victory Park, the museum, named in honor of donors Margot and Ross Perot, extends the Arts District north of the freeway. The Dallas Museum of Natural History, established in 1936, was previously located in Fair Park, with its former building now a satellite of the downtown museum. Thom Mayne of Los Angeles–based Morphosis designed a massive concrete cube mysteriously hovering over a recessed glass base and low plinth. A curved two-story entrance wing shields the stepped entrance court from the adjacent freeway. The surrounding site, with landscaping of native plants, appears to be littered with concrete construction debris, penetrated with skylights to illuminate the galleries below. The irregular concrete wall panels are horizontally textured, coarse at the bottom to smooth at the top, resembling a sagging skin. Hanging outside and raking diagonally up the south facade is a glass box, the dramatic, fifty-four-foot continuous escalator between interior levels.