In the footprint of a former parking garage now stands Los Angeles’ latest architectural marvel; and what’s inside is just as marvelous. The city’s new Broad Museum recently opened as a shrine to contemporary art and is the amazing accumulation of almost 30 years of avid collecting by the Broads.
The Broads have been trying to get this musuem built for several years. After a collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art fell through (Broad didn’t want 90% of his collection sitting in storage), the decision was made to hire Diller Scofidio + Renfro (the firm famous for NYC’s High Line Park). Architecturally, the exterior is called the “veil”; a white honeycomb of 2,500 lozenge-shape panels of fiberglass-reinforced concrete with curving indentations that hold oval windows.
Inside, artists are represented in great breadth and depth. There are roughly 2,000 pieces by over 200 artists, among whom Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Jeff Koons have been granted entire galleries to represent each. With the Broad Foundation adding roughly 50 pieces a year, there’s room in the museum for a gorgeous permanent collection as well as a 21,000 square-foot storage space and a 35,000 square-foot column-free gallery with “movable” walls intended to work with whatever is displayed.
Eli and Edythe’s generosity astounds even the most philanthropic of us. This new museum is a fabulous addition to LA’s prolific contemporary art scene and may very well have catapulted the city to #1 for the moment… quite an impressive accomplishment!
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The exterior of the Broad Museum.
Image courtesy of: Arch Record
At the opening reception of the Broad Museum, the giant Jeff Koons “dog” was a popular stop.
Image courtesy of: Live Trading News
A close-up of the Broad’s incredible architecture.
Image courtesy of: Hometown Pasadena
