By Joanne Heyler,Rochelle Steiner

Copyright thewrap

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

Collages by Monique Baumann

The late Eli Broad and his wife, Edyth L. Broad, began collecting contemporary art more than 50 years ago, but the architectural wonder known as The Broad turns 10 in September. It’s now hard to remember a time without the iconic white structure standing as a beacon within Downtown L.A. Set adjacent to Frank Gehry’s signature Walt Disney Concert Hall, the distinctive honeycomb-veiled building by the architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (in collaboration with Gensler) has become a central point in the contemporary art scene and street life on Grand Avenue. “Over 6.5 million visitors later, it’s easy to forget The Broad is very much a ‘start up’ — 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 to what we can do in the future.”

Looking ahead is exactly what Heyler and her colleagues are doing, with ground broken this spring on a $100 million, 50,000-square-foot addition 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 ground break 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 experience of the storage ”vault” where visitors can delve into the vastness of the collection, walking 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 – all drawn to work presented at the highest standard.

The public turns out, too. The Broad has become known for lines snaking out the door and around the block. The colorful street life of Grand Avenue is fully visible through the museum’s front glass façade, allowing staffers to gauge the museum’s busyness by the number of food carts parked outside. The welcoming atmosphere continues in the lobby, which 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 our 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 (Edyth is 89; Eli died in 2021 at age 87) amassed an enviable collection of unmistakable quality. “When it comes to the core of things—mainly, the collection—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. It’s not better than other museums, but one of the ways we are different. It means 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.”

The results of these relationships are clear, gallery after gallery. There are more works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and many other artists on view at The Broad than at any other museum in the city—and possibly in the world. “We can show mini-retrospectives for a lot of artists and will do more as the collection grows and when our expansion opens,” she says. “Depth takes time to do right, but the benefit for our audience and deepening the integrity of the institution is worth the wait. The Broad is less about showing highlights and more about how an artist evolved over time.”

The Broad’s success also highlights how downtown L.A. has evolved. “The existence of The Broad in relation to its location in Los Angeles is something we inherited from Eli, and this includes being profoundly civic-minded, with faith not only in L.A. as a city but in downtown specifically — even against the odds,” Heyler says, noting the late philanthropist’s role in developing nearby landmarks like the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Gloria Molina Grand Park. “Eli had a vision for Downtown L.A. and it’s exciting to see these institutions thrive that his grit and determination helped create.”