The Broad
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
August 31. 2015.
Los Angeles, California, USA
Dubbed "the veil and the vault," the museum's design merges the two key programs of the building: public
exhibition space and the storage that will support the Broad Art Foundation's extensive lending activities.
Rather than relegate the storage to secondary status, "the vault" plays a key role in shaping the museum experience from entry to exit. Its heavy opaque mass is always in view, hovering midway in the building. Its carved underside shapes the lobby below and public circulation routes. Its top surface is the floor of the third floor galleries.
The vault is enveloped by "the veil" - a porous, honeycomb-like, exterior structure that spans across the block-long building and provides filtered natural daylight. The museum's "veil" lifts at the corners, welcoming visitors and activating the lobby.
The public is then drawn upwards via an escalator that tunnels through the vault and arrives onto nearly an
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The Broad also includes the Oculus Hall, a multipurpose public space on the second floor, with flexible seating capacity of up to 200. It will be used for lectures, films, performances and other public programs. It is named for its location within the oculus on the Grand Avenue facade of the building.
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The veil is made primarily of 2,500 fiberglass reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels and 650 tons of steel. Supported at three points the Grand Avenue touchdown beam can rock about a central pivot point allowing the entire veil structure to slightly "see-saw" back and forth along its plane during a major earthquake. Each end of the beam is allowed to move up and down by 3/4 of an inch.
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