Visitors enter the glass-enclosed kiosk and descend one floor down a circular staircase, flooded with streams of light from above. An escalator ride completes the descent to the third-level Ripley Center, where a passageway leads to an open concourse complete with trees and a fountain. A trompe l'oeil mural by Richard Haas dominates the eastern wall. Classrooms and offices, which include the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Smithsonian Associates, line both sides of this broad, airy concourse.