The Broad

The main branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) is located on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles

Address: 221 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Type: Art Museum

Founder: Eli and Edythe Broad

Opening: 2015

General Information

The Broad is a contemporary art museum founded by Eli and Edythe Broad. The museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative audience engagement. The Broad is home to more than 2,000 works of art in the Broad collection, which is among the most prominent holdings of postwar and contemporary art worldwide.

History

Eli Broad and the Broad Art Foundation had been considering different sites for a museum for the art collection since 2008. In August 2010, Eli Broad announced formally that he would build a museum in Downtown Los Angeles. He agreed to pay 7.7 million for a 99 year lease. The agreement included an 8.5 million government share of the cost of the museum's outdoor plaza and government payments of up to $30 million to reimburse Broad for building the museum's underground parking garage. Under a buy-back provision, the garage will eventually be government owned.

There was an invited architectural competition for the project in 2010. Six architects were asked to present preliminary designs. Invited architects were Dutch architect Rem Koolhass and his firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture; Swiss pair Herzog & de Meuron; Christian de Portzamparc from Paris; Japanese duo Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA; and Diller Scofidio + Renfro from New York. Diller Scofidio + Renfro were enventually chosen by Broad to design the approximately 120,000 square foot museum which includes exhibition space, offices and a parking garage.

In February 2015, Eli and Edythe Broad hosted a public preview of the new building.

Architecture

The Broad is housed in a new building designed by architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro and structural engineering firm Leslie E. Robertson Associates. The Broad is adjacent to the iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall which was designed by Frank Gehry. The design of the Broad was intended to contrast the bright metallic Walt Disney Concert Hall with a porous "honeycomblike" exterior. The building design is based on a concept entitled "the veil and the vault". The whole building is wrapped by "the veil" in a porous envelope which filters daylight into the indoor space.

The three-story museum features 50,000 square feet of exhibition space on two floors with 35,000 square feet of column-free gallery space on the third floor. The roof has 318 skylight monitors that let in diffused sunlight from the north.

Collections

The Broad houses 2,000-piece collection of contemporary art, featuring 200 artists. Below are some of the works displayed.


Jeff Koons	Robert Therrien
Balloon Dog (Blue)	Under the Table

Ellsworth Kelly	Takashi Murakami
Blue Red (left) & Green Relief with Blue (right)	In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow