Eli Broad: L.A.'s peripatetic patron
Philanthropist's idiosyncratic vision and hands-on control have been both his strength and his weakness.
 Eli Broad (Jay Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) |
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"This is not a one-philanthropist town," Eli Broad wrote in an op-ed for The Times in 2008.
Architects who have closely followed the billionaire's civic activities over the last two decades might disagree. As a donor, client and behind-the-scenes power broker, Broad has had a hand in a remarkable number of high-profile buildings in Southern California during that period, including projects by Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Cesar Pelli and Frank Gehry.
Broad hopes to add to that list by hiring a top-tier architect for a museum on Bunker Hill holding his own extensive art collection, the first art museum built downtown since architect Arata Isozaki's 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art. (As MOCA's founding chairman, Broad had a hand in that one too.) After a private competition, Broad is leaning toward a design by New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
For all of Broad's consistent prominence on the public stage in recent years, the buildings he has helped develop make up a disparate, even contradictory group. They don't reflect a single aesthetic vision or chart the growth of a few chosen architects over time. If the buildings have any common thread, in fact, it is disappointment: Broad has collaborated with some of the most talented firms in the world, to be sure. But he has also overseen some of their least impressive work.
When Broad is intimately involved in a building project, as he is likely to be on the forthcoming museum, his relentless personal style can sear right through his relationships with the architects he
Architects who have closely followed the billionaire's civic activities over the last two decades might disagree. As a donor, client and behind-the-scenes power broker, Broad has had a hand in a remarkable number of high-profile buildings in Southern California during that period, including projects by Renzo Piano, Richard Meier, Cesar Pelli and Frank Gehry.
Broad hopes to add to that list by hiring a top-tier architect for a museum on Bunker Hill holding his own extensive art collection, the first art museum built downtown since architect Arata Isozaki's 1986 Museum of Contemporary Art. (As MOCA's founding chairman, Broad had a hand in that one too.) After a private competition, Broad is leaning toward a design by New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
For all of Broad's consistent prominence on the public stage in recent years, the buildings he has helped develop make up a disparate, even contradictory group. They don't reflect a single aesthetic vision or chart the growth of a few chosen architects over time. If the buildings have any common thread, in fact, it is disappointment: Broad has collaborated with some of the most talented firms in the world, to be sure. But he has also overseen some of their least impressive work.
When Broad is intimately involved in a building project, as he is likely to be on the forthcoming museum, his relentless personal style can sear right through his relationships with the architects he
