The Broad in Los Angeles and its veil-and-vault world of contemporary art

The Broad in Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum where a pale, patterned exterior wraps a solid inner volume that stores a major collection of postwar art. Opened in 2015 on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, it was founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad as a permanent home for their collection and for The Broad Art Foundation’s lending activities.

An art museum built around a vault

The Broad stands on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art and close to Walt Disney Concert Hall, as part of a dense cultural cluster in the city centre.Located in downtown Los Angeles The museum was commissioned by Eli and Edythe Broad and designed by the New York practice Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with Gensler as executive architect.Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The building’s plan brings the collection itself to the centre. A large, windowless inner volume known as the vault occupies much of the structure and houses storage, conservation spaces and collection-related offices, reflecting the museum’s role as both public institution and lending hub.The central vault Around and above this core sit the public galleries, which display works from a collection of roughly 2,000 pieces of postwar and contemporary art and give visitors direct access to artists ranging from Andy Warhol to Jean-Michel Basquiat.Collection of contemporary art

The honeycomb veil and the light-filled galleries

From the street, The Broad is defined by its pale external skin, a textured grid of glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels forming what the architects describe as a veil.Concrete veil around the vault This veil wraps the building’s sides and roof, with a pattern of openings that admit controlled daylight while protecting sensitive artworks from direct sun. Inside, the upper main gallery stretches across almost the entire footprint of the building, supported by a structural grid that frees the space from internal columns and leaves long sightlines through the works on display.Column-free upper gallery

The circulation sequence is part of the encounter with this architecture. Visitors enter at street level and move along an escalator that passes through the vault volume itself, briefly revealing the collection storage behind protective walls before emerging into the upper galleries.Escalator through the vault On the ground floor, additional gallery rooms sit between the vault and the facade, creating a contrast between compressed spaces near the core and more open areas near the veil, where filtered daylight reaches the works.

A downtown plaza and a growing institution

The museum’s footprint extends beyond the enclosed building into an outdoor plaza that runs between Hope Street and Grand Avenue, landscaped as a public space that links The Broad to the wider civic environment on Bunker Hill.Outdoor public plaza This plaza, also designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, offers planting, seating and clear views of the museum’s patterned exterior, placing the veil-and-vault composition in dialogue with neighbouring structures.

Since its opening in 2015, The Broad has formed part of a broader evolution of Grand Avenue as a destination for large-scale cultural buildings, alongside the concert hall and existing museums.Opened in 2015 The museum building itself has a gross floor area reported between about 11,000 m² and 120,000 square feet, giving it space for extensive galleries, back-of-house functions and the vault at its heart.Size and floor area Together, the architecture and collection make The Broad a sustained experiment in how a purpose-built structure can mediate between storage, display and the public life of contemporary art.

Visiting The Broad: what travellers from Western Europe should know

• The Broad stands on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, close to Walt Disney Concert Hall and opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art; it is reached on foot from surrounding streets or by local public transport.
• The museum interior includes a long escalator ride through the vault volume and staircases between levels, so a visit involves moving through enclosed spaces and negotiating changes in height.
• The official language is English and the currency is the United States dollar.
• Entry requirements depend on your nationality; UK travellers can check the FCDO travel advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice, Irish travellers the Department of Foreign Affairs at ireland.ie.

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Frequently asked questions about The Broad

Where is The Broad in Los Angeles?

The Broad is on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, California, in the United States, close to other major cultural institutions on Bunker Hill.

What can visitors expect on a visit to The Broad?

Visitors encounter a contemporary art museum arranged around a central vault, with large galleries displaying postwar and contemporary works and circulation that passes through the core of the building.

What makes The Broad distinctive among art museums?

The Broad is distinctive for its combination of a honeycomb concrete veil, a vault dedicated to collection storage at the centre of the building and extensive daylight-controlled galleries housing a major contemporary art collection.