As The Broad marks its 10th anniversary, founding director and president Joanne Heyler reflects on the museum’s impact on downtown Los Angeles and the city’s cultural scene
By Rochelle Steiner
The late Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe L. Broad, began acquiring contemporary
art more than 50 years ago, but the architectural wonder known as The
Broad that houses their collection turns 10 in September. The distinctive
white honeycomb-veiled building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (in
collaboration with Gensler), has become a beacon of culture in Downtown
L.A. “Over 6.5 million visitors later, it’s easy to forget The Broad is very much
a startup—it’s still a young institution,” says Joanne Heyler, the museum’s
founding director and president. “We’ve had a lot of success in our first
10 years, yet our real goal is to keep going, keep evolving. We don’t look back
as much as we look ahead.”
Looking ahead is exactly what Heyler and her colleagues are doing, with
ground broken this past spring on a $100 million, 50,000-square-foot addition
that is expected to open in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics. “We decided
for the 10th anniversary of our opening on Grand Avenue, let’s not have a
gala. Let’s open a very real, new chapter and break ground for a new building,”
Heyler says. “That’s something Eli would have appreciated—let’s do
something practical to mark the decade, chart the future and keep moving
forward.”
The new building, also designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, will add 70%
more space for displaying art, including skylit galleries and open-air
courtyards. Another feature will be an immersive storage ”vault” where
visitors can walk among racks holding some of the Broad’s 2,000-plus works.
“Art and artists—that’s where it all starts,” Heyler says. In its first decade,
the Broad has mounted knock-out exhibitions highlighting many of
contemporary art’s most sought-after figures: Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring,
Jasper Johns, Shirin Neshat, William Kentridge, Takashi Murakami, Mickalene
Thomas and many others. The Broad has also gained a reputation for
openings, parties and special events that attract both artists and celebrities.
The public turns out, too, with lines often snaking out the door and around the block. The colorful street life of Grand Avenue is fully visible through
the museum’s front glass facade, welcoming pedestrians into a lobby that
lacks a traditional entry desk or check-in counter. That’s deliberate, Heyler
explains. “Museums are social spaces—and I wanted to lean on that as
much as possible at a time when we are so isolated on the screens of our
phones and monitors of our home computers,” she says. “We decided to
make sure fundamentally that The Broad would be a social experience—
a museum with emotional intelligence.”
Art and artists—that’s where it all starts,”
—Joanne Heyler
An embarrassment of riches awaits an escalator ride up from the lobby.
The Broads (Edythe is 89; Eli died in 2021 at age 87) amassed an enviable
collection with multiple works by 20th-century American legends such as
Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. “We want to
focus on continuing to follow individual artists through their careers and
collect in depth,” Heyler says. “This is one of the secrets of The Broad’s
distinct identity. We cannot collect everyone, so we are less comprehensively
covering an era or a moment, and more focused on expressing an era or
eras through singular voices.”
That focus has enabled The Broad to mount mini-retrospectives of many
artists, a practice that Heyler and her team plan to continue after the
expansion. “Depth takes time to do right, but the benefit for our audience
and deepening the integrity of the institution is worth the wait,” she says.
“The Broad is less about showing highlights and more about how an artist
evolved over time.”
The Broad’s success also highlights the transformation of Downtown
L.A.—and the pioneering role that Eli Broad played in developing nearby
landmarks such as the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Walt
Disney Concert Hall and Gloria Molina Grand Park. “Eli had a vision for
Downtown L.A.,” Heyler says, “and it’s exciting to see these institutions thrive
that his grit and determination helped create.”
