breaking
Up until a few years ago, on any given
the
night or weekend, Downtown Los Angeles was
something of a ghost town. Unlike most urban
areas, LA’s heartbeat has never been centrally
located, which means the nation’s second
broa d
By Pat M c Guire
biggest city has always been lacking a true hub
for its sprawl.
Yet, thanks in large part to the vision and
commitment of billionaire philanthropists Eli and
Edythe Broad (rhymes with “road”), today the
area is a thriving hotspot, and a visit to Southern
California is not complete without a trip to the
new jewel in the downtown crown: the couple’s
innovative contemporary art museum, The Broad.
The
cube-shaped,
web-like
three-story
building on Grand Avenue—which was designed
by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with
fresh, famed landmarks like Frank Gehry’s Walt
Disney Concert Hall, Rafael Moneo’s Cathedral of
Our Lady of the Angels, and Wolf D. Prix’s Grand Arts
High School. It’s also the first entirely new major
museum founded in LA in nearly twenty years.
The Broad houses one of the world’s
most prominent collections of postwar and
contemporary art, an adventurous and zestfully
selected accumulation built over decades by
diligent research and Eli and Edythe’s nurturing
hands. Along with their longtime curator, Joanne
Heyler, who acts as the museum’s Founding
Director, The
Broad
Art
Foundation
spent
years making loans and sponsoring wings and
buildings in existing museums. When they
decided to build a headquarters of their own,
Heyler was tasked with turning the private
collection into a public space.
“Even before a museum was in the planning
stages, we were lending out the works all over the
world, so the collection has always had a public life
and a public purpose,” Heyler says. “In that sense,
BACKSTORY: Billionaire philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad’s new cutting-edge museum
housing their preeminent collection of postwar and contemporary art
WHERE: Downtown Los Angeles
YOU MIGHT KNOW IT AS: The ivory colored, honeycomb-veiled structure across the street from the
Walt Disney Concert Hall on a thriving stretch of Grand Avenue
NOW: The 120,000-square-foot, $140 million building is open for free to the public six days a week
and set to debut its first special exhibition, Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life, this summer
14
FLOOD
it’s always been a dream job for a curator, because
you avoid the bureaucracy that tends to come up
in the larger institutions. But you are also fulfilling
a public purpose. It has never been a private
collection for the Broads’ personal enjoyment.”
THIS PAGE: Iwan Baan. OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP LEFT: Bruce Damonte; MIDDLE LEFT: HUFTON CROW;
BOTTOM LEFT: ADRIAN GAUT; BOTTOM RIGHT: JOANNE HEYLER.
Gensler—stands out even on a street boasting