Big news for architecture and art fans alike coming out of Los Angeles today, where The Broad just announced plans for a major expansion project to the tune of $100 million.
The reveal of the new proposal, which will reportedly increase the available gallery space by 70%, comes nearly ten years after the existing building opened to much fanfare on Downtown LA's Grand Avenue arts and culture corridor in 2015 to allow free public access to the vast art collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad.
For the design of the expansion, the museum has commissioned the original architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) again, whose initial renderings hint at a continuation of their "veil and vault" concept.
"The exterior of the expansion echoes the surface appearance of the vault — as if this core had been exposed and 'unveiled' — symbolically expressing The Broad’s commitment to access while playfully inverting the visual vocabulary of the current building," the architects describe the new design on their website. "Inside the addition, there will be large new galleries on the first, second, and third floors, as well as second-floor spaces in which visitors will be able to move among racks filled with artworks from the collection, creating a zone that serves simultaneously as gallery and art storage."
The 55,000-square-foot expansion will feature two top-floor, open-air courtyards, flexible live programming space, and a new visitor-friendly art storage vault experience.
"I think of the new building as a companion to the existing Broad," commented Elizabeth Diller. "The pair shares DNA, but each has its own distinct character and purpose in constant dialogue with its counterpart. The original Broad was conceived as an unfolding experience starting in the lobby, traveling up the escalator piercing the vault, landing in the third-floor gallery immersed in the collection, then snaking down through collection storage on the way back to the street. The challenge of adding more space to the building was to retain this intuitive circulation and logic while introducing a set of completely new experiences for the visitor."
The museum's Founding Director, Joanne Heyler, added finally: "With this expansion, we intend to amplify The Broad’s commitment to access for all to contemporary art, offering surprising, welcoming, and imaginative experiences that honor the diversity of our public and add to the ever-growing vitality of Grand Avenue, the area that Eli Broad believed in so strongly and that he helped transform into what it is today."
Lamar Johnson Collaborative is the Executive Architect of the project.
Groundbreaking of the new building is scheduled in early 2025, with the public opening anticipated ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
15 Comments
Boring.
I suppose its good that this Broad expansion will offset some of the exhibit space lost across town at LACMA due to their misadventure with Peter Zumthor. I suspect that constructional realities will make the realized Broad addition heavier and less open in appearance than these renders suggest.
I don’t think there’s any meaningful sharing of collections between LACMA and the Broad Foundation. Broad has always preferred to display their own stuff and works of favored (and collected) artists; additionally, the exhibition space that vanished with the LACMA renovation was devoted to collections that I would guess are of little interest to Broad.
If the original was nicknamed "The Cheese Grater" what are we calling this expansion?
Now accepting all nickname entries!
I think "VE Stucco Blob" has a nice ring to it.
The Stucco Mullet
business in the front, party in the back (as they say)
should have been yellow - "the cheese"
surely a missed opportunity!
moldy cheese?
.
as a facade expression actual cheese looks more interesting (and tasty)
A paint color other than rat gray on the proposed stucco form would probably improve things.
The MushMellow
The og
stucco is back. but, it was never gone...
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