Description

An architectural idea is only clear if it can be sketched on the back of a matchbox. If you were to translate Peter Zumthor’s statement into the digital age, it could be: an architectural idea is only clear if it can serve as a password to a WLAN network. Theveilandthevault is the internet access code for visitors to Los Angeles’ new museum of contemporary art: The Broad. For the project architect Elizabeth Diller, the veil and the vault were the quintessential aspects of the programme requested by the clients Eli and Edythe Broad, which included not only an art museum but also the patron’s depot and foundation headquarters.

Eli Broad, who is considered the spiritual father of the (cultural) revitalization of downtown L.A., opted for a property in a downtown location on Grand Avenue. Situated between a simple apartment tower with an arrhythmic perforated facade by Arquitectonica and the dazzling Walt Disney Concert Hall, it was previously just a parking lot. Diller contrasts Gehry’s expressive symphony with the simplest of all forms, a box on a square base with an edge length of 61 metres. However, the sophistication of this simple form lies in its details and interior, which are similarly dramatic but far more convincing than those of the Disney Concert Hall.

The shell of this box is perforated by diamonds that extend uniformly across all five sides, including the roof. The perfectly detailed roof surface consists of skylights that are diagonally aligned for exact north orientation, and it is only logical that the diagonals continue on the building’s elevations. The 2500 modules of the shell, of which there are 380 unique variants, consist of two thin layers of glass-fibre-reinforced white concrete mounted onto a load-bearing steel frame.

What looked like an airy veil in the renderings is more reminiscent in reality of the incommunicative rigidity of Egon Eiermann’s Horten-building facade and allows only marginal views in and out. However, the biomorphic detailing of the honeycomb structure, the curvature in the street elevation, and above all the lifting of the “veil” at the four corners create tension and arouse curiosity. In fact, in contrast to much of Los Angeles, this white monolith is unusually open and generous in its ground-level interaction with the street, and has neither steps, ramps nor walls. A frameless, large-format glass front is set back a distance behind the facade and separates the surprisingly dark and cavernous foyer from the street space. An escalator extends out of a gullet-like orifice and invites one to travel upwards to the large exhibition spaces, 13.40 metres above street level. The darkly plastered, organically shaped drywall interiors of the entrance area transition fluidly into the ceiling and evoke parallels with the forms of the honeycomb facade. They clad the belly of depot (“the vault”) that is the heart of the building between the foyer and the light-filled upper floor.

Next to the escalator, a cylindrical glass elevator and a staircase concentrate on a nodal point at the centre of the upper floor, directly between the works of art. Here one experiences the unbroken continuation of the roof surface into the facades, but also the luxury of a column-free space with an area of 3250 m². The exhibition walls can be placed at predetermined anchor points in the floor, remaining well below the naturally-illuminated ceiling, allowing the airy space to crown the building and the exhibition.

The intermediate level houses the depot, the offices and a lecture hall, which is visible as a slight outward bulge in the facade. Here the concrete rhombuses even penetrate the glass skin and continue as fibreglass elements behind it through the interior, where they appear to stick to the glass. Each visitor crosses this intermediate level twice: on the way up almost inevitably as they pass by on the escalator, and on the way down by staircase. The meandering course of the staircase provides two views of the depot that also reinforce the image of the vault, the darkness of the staircase heightening the effect of the view into the bright interior of the depot like a glimpse into a treasure chamber. Further exhibition areas and archives are on the ground floor along with the museum shop.

Originally published in Bauwelt 43.2015, pp. 20-27, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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