Diller Scofidio + Renfro has revealed its design for The Broad Art Foundation building in Los Angeles, California. Image: © Diller Scofidio + Renfro Extra Large Image
Los Angeles · 2011.0106
Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad and architect Elizabeth Diller have revealed the design for The Broad Art Foundation, a contemporary art museum planned for downtown Los Angeles, California. Diller Scofidio + Renfro of New York City designed the three-story, 120,000-square-foot (11,000-square-meter) museum, merging the two key components of the building: public exhibit space, and the archive and storage space that will support the foundation's worldwide art lending library.
Rather than being relegated to secondary status, the heavy, opaque mass of the archive-and-storage "vault" will always be in view. The vault's carved underside will shape the lobby below, while its top surface will be the floor of the exhibition space. The vault will be enveloped on all sides by a honeycomb "veil" that will span the block-long gallery and transmit filtered daylight. That porous exterior will contrast with the reflectivity of the nearby Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The public entry to the museum will be on Grand Avenue and will complement a landscaped plaza to the south that is part of the Grand Avenue Project's master plan. The museum's veil will be lifted at the corners. Visitors will enter through the lobby and then travel upwards via an escalator, tunneling through the archive, arriving onto 40,000 square feet (3,700 square meters) of column-free exhibit space 24 feet (seven meters) in height. Visitors will exit the exhibition space and descend back to the lobby on a winding stair through the vault that offers behind-the-scenes glimpses of the lending library and the holdings of the Broad Collections.
The museum construction is expected to begin in late summer 2011 and be completed in two years. The Santa Monica office of Gensler will serve as executive architect.
People and Places Last Week
People and Places Archive
ArchitectureWeek Professional Directory
ArchitectureWeek Web Directory
Send us your People and Places items
