Architectural superstars on Eli Broad's short list for new museum

Eli Broad is a little further along in his plans for a downtown museum than you might have guessed.

Even as he continues to negotiate with city and county officials and with representatives of developer Related Cos. about building a museum to hold his collection of postwar and contemporary art on Bunker Hill, the billionaire philanthropist and his chief of staff, Gerun Riley, have been running an invited architectural competition for the project.

According to a list of invited firms seen by The Times — and confirmed by a source familiar with the proceedings who asked not to be named because he doesn't want to jeopardize his relationship with Broad — the competition is loaded with blue-chip architects. Of the six asked to prepare preliminary museum designs this month for the site at Grand Avenue and 2nd Street, four are winners of the Pritzker Prize, the field's top award.

They include Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (whose prolific firm is called Office for Metropolitan Architecture); Swiss pair Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron; French architect Christian de Portzamparc; and Japanese duo Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, whose Tokyo firm, SANAA, is the winner of the 2010 Pritzker.

Read the full story here. Updates available at Culture Monster.

-- Christopher Hawthorne

Photo: Anne Cusack / L.A. Times

Comments

[County worker]

Hooray!!! I'm excited because I work right there!! I'll be haunting the Broad Collection as soon as it opens.