Broad Museum
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location: .Los Angeles, California
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program: .Museum
.............area: .125,000 sf
...........client: .Private
..........status: .Proposal
Rather than another physically and culturally disconnected museum, Los Angeles needs an accessible civic space where people gather to enjoy art and community.
This proposal for the Broad Contemporary Art Museum brings the city into the museum’s fold by supplementing the museum’s program with much needed non-commercial public space. The Museum’s open public space is created by suspending the galleries from a raised plinth. This frees up the ground for a series of plazas, sculpture gardens and water features that connect the museum with Los Angeles’ distinctive urbanism and climate.
The plinth shades this public space from the desert heat, while allowing the space to remain open to the surroundings. This maximizes natural ventilation and the cooling effects of the water features. Microclimates created by the building form a natural transition from the heat of the surrounding neighborhood to the coolness of the galleries.
Just as Los Angeles is organized by it’s horizontal ground plane, the galleries are organized by the plinth level. This level unifies the museum's diverse gallery typologies into a coherent whole without detracting from each gallery’s unique character.
The gallery design provides the visitor with multiple routes through the museum. This non-linear arrangement also allows for curatorial flexibility and creates the possibility of simultaneously staging multiple exhibits. The variety of gallery types creates the optimal setting for the diverse scales and media represented within contemporary art.