Dallas Arts District Tour

The Dallas Arts District is a large area (touted by the Dallas Convention and Visitor's Bureau as "the largest urban cultural district in the nation") at the north end of Downtown Dallas that consists of Dallas' best multi-cultural art, music, dance and general entertainment venues. The Arts District is a place that caters to almost everyone's tastes on almost any day of the week.

The Dallas Arts District was conceived and developed in a matter of eight years (1977 - 1984) through a cooperative effort by the City of Dallas and private arts foundations. The location of this District was no accident. In 1984, the year when the Dallas Museum of Art, the Dallas Theater Center, and the Trammell Crow Center opened their doors, they brought their artistic flavor to an area that was already graced by historic structures such as the Cathedral Santuario de Guadalupe, St. Paul United Methodist Church, and the Belo Mansion.

Here's a Downtown Dallas Arts District Map to help you on this "tour." (Previously, as the map shows, the Arts District extended only to the east side of Routh Street, but on March 9th, 2005 the Dallas City Council approved an extension of the district east to the US-75/I-45 expressway.)

Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art, at the intersection of Flora and Harwood Streets, is considered to be the cornerstone of the Arts District. As mentioned before, this museum opened it's doors to the public in 1984. Two additional sections of the Museum have been built since then, one in 1985 and one in 1993. This museum was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes. Barnes and his partners also designed the glass-tower in New York that houses the I.B.M. Corporation's headquarters and the beautiful Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis.