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During your Dallas vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Dallas Zoo
If you're headed west to Fort Worth, and one zoo trip will do, you'd be better off waiting (the Fort Worth Zoo, along with the one in San Antonio, are the two best in Texas and two of the best in the country). Otherwise, if the kids are clamoring for some wild animals, the recently renovated Dallas Zoo -- the oldest zoo in Texas, founded in 1888 -- isn't likely to disappoint (one feature, "Wilds of Africa," was named the top African zoo exhibit in the country). The 85-acre park also features a habitat for rare Sumatran tigers, a chimpanzee forest, and a monorail safari ride. A couple of hours spent here should suffice for the kids.
Nasher Sculpture Center
Despite its status as the principal art museum in a city of considerable wealth, the rather modest permanent collection of the Dallas Museum of Art is proof that either north Texans don't collect much great art or they don't donate it on a grand scale to local institutions. One notable exception to that rule is Raymond Nasher, one of the world's foremost collectors of contemporary sculpture. A local businessman, by way of New York, who made his banking and real estate fortune in Dallas (with the shopping mall NorthPark Center, among other properties), Nasher decided, after years of being wooed by the Dallas Museum of Art as well as major institutions like the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to establish a public sculpture garden in his adopted city. The $50-million project was entirely funded by the private Nasher Foundation.The Nasher Sculpture Center opened in 2003 on a 2 1/2-acre site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art, in a glass-and-marble structure infused with natural light, designed by the renowned architect Renzo Piano. The center should change the way art aficionados think about Dallas and make it an art destination. The collection, which includes high-quality pieces by virtually all of the great modern masters and was amassed over 4 decades by Ray and his wife Patsy, is considered by some art experts to be the finest private sculpture collection in the world. The tasteful 54,000-square-foot center, a place of quiet refuge in downtown Dallas, features an outdoor sculpture garden landscaped by Peter Walker, with pieces from Nasher's immense collection exhibited both indoors and out. The collection includes some of the finest individual works from the likes of Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Joan Miró, David Smith, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Alexander Calder, Isamu Noguchi, Richard Serra, Mark di Suvero, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Joseph Beuys, Roy Lichtenstein, and many others. Among the monumental pieces in the open-air museum there are too many highlights to mention, though James Turrell's "skyspace" Tending (Blue), perhaps deserves special recognition as a site-specific piece commissioned for the museum. At the back of the garden, near the bathrooms, it is a walk-in box open to the sky, with optical effects and an unexpected perspective. Although the Nasher Sculpture Center -- which has some of the biggest names in art and architecture attached to it -- opened with big publicity and truly ought to be one of Dallas's most highly prized treasures, it is sadly and inexplicably having some difficulty attracting visitors, especially locals. If you're at all a fan of modern art, don't miss the opportunity to see this spectacular collection.
Meadows Museum of Art
On the campus of Southern Methodist University is one of the city's best-kept secrets: the finest collection of Spanish art outside Spain (so significant, in fact, that it spent much of 2000 on display at the top-tier Thyssen-Bornemisza museums in Madrid and Barcelona). A Dallas oil magnate, Algur Meadows, went to Spain to search for oil, entertaining himself at the Prado Museum. He came up dry, but his sojourn into Spanish art history bore fruit: Meadows began to assemble a splendid collection of works from the 15th to 20th centuries, including pieces by Spanish masters from the Golden Age of Spanish painting (such as Velázquez, Goya, Ribera, Murillo, Zurbarán -- just about the only big name missing is El Greco). Having moved into a new building six times larger than the old site, Meadows Museum is one of the best small museums with a singular focus in the U.S. Of special note among the nearly 700 items on display are Ribera's Retrato de un Caballero de Santiago and Goya's El Corral de los Locos (by many accounts the finest Goya found in the United States), as well as a series of 200 works on paper by Goya. The 20th-century Spanish masters Picasso, Dalí, Miró, and Tàpies are also represented.
The Westin Park Central
Nearby Airports: * Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport - 17 Miles * Dallas Love Field Airport - 8 Miles Nearby Cities: * North Dallas - 1 Mile * Richardson - 2 Miles * Addison - 5 Miles * Plano - 5 Miles * Carrollton - 6 Miles * Garland - 7 Miles * Dallas - 8 Miles * Highland Park - 8 Miles * Irving - 8 Miles * Mesquite - 15 Miles * Grapevine - 16 Miles * Rowlett - 18 Miles * Arlington - 20 ...
The Grand Hotel Dallas
Grand Hotel Dallas is designed to meet the exacting requirements of business travelers, it is also a perfect base of operations for family visits, reunions, weddings, or vacations, for business or leisure. To cater to the needs of the business traveler, a full service business center is available. To ensure the success of meeting and functions, the Grand Hotel has a fully equipped conference room. After a long day of sightseeing or meetings, guests can relax by taking a dip in the outdoor ...
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