The three museums work together to achieve their common mission: "to inspire wonder, discovery, and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds.

"[4] NHM opened in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California, in 1913 as The Museum of History, Science, and Art.

Its distinctive main building with fitted marble walls and domed and colonnaded rotunda, is on The National Register of Historic Places.

[8] The commons will be approximately 60,000 square feet consisting of renovations, new constructions, and landscaping; it will be located on the southwest side of the museum.

The commons aims to be a community space with a combination of indoor and outdoor experiences including a welcome area, a lobby with a shop, a theater, a café, and a plaza.

Among the most popular museum displays are those devoted to animal habitats, dinosaurs, pre-Columbian cultures, The Ralph M. Parsons Discovery Center and Insect Zoo, and the new Nature Lab, which explores urban wildlife in Southern California.

These include one of the largest collections of marine mammal remains in the world, housed in a warehouse off site, which at over 5,000 specimens is second in size only to that of The Smithsonian.