The Broad was founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Designed by New York architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, the museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative engagement with the public. The Broad houses 2,000 works of art from the Broad collection, which is one of the premier collections of contemporary art in the world.
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The collection features holdings from prominent and influential contemporary artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Yayoi Kusama, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Takashi Murakami, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and many more, along with an increasing representation of new generations of artists.
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The 120,000-square-foot building features two floors of galleries and is home to the Broad Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library, which has been lending works from the collection to museums worldwide since 1984. The Broad thus makes its collection of contemporary art from the 1950s to the present accessible to all, presenting exhibitions and operating a program of loans to museums and art galleries worldwide.
By actively building a dynamic collection that features in-depth representations of influential contemporary artists and by promoting education and engagement through exhibitions and diverse public programming, the museum enriches, provokes, inspires, and fosters an appreciation for the art of our time.
Nicknamed “the veil and the vault,” the museum’s appealing design merges the two key components of the building: the public exhibition space and the collection storage. Instead of relegating storage to the background, the “vault” plays a key role in shaping the museum experience from entry to exit. Its heavy, opaque mass is always in view, floating halfway in the building. Its carved underside forms the lower lobby, while its upper surface is the floor plate of the exhibition space. The vault stores parts of the collection not on display in the galleries or on loan, but designers provided observation windows for visitors to get a sense of the collection’s intensive depth and look directly into the storage vault. The vault is wrapped on all sides by the “veil,” an airy, honeycomb-like structure spanning the gallery one block long, providing filtered natural light.
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Directly south of the museum is a public plaza also designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, in collaboration with Hood Design Studio, Inc. The landscape features 100-year-old Barouni olive trees and an open lawn, adding another significant green space plot to Grand Avenue.
The Broad welcomes over 900,000 visitors annually from around the world.
