Since opening nearly ten years ago, The Broad has welcomed more than 5.5 million visitors to Bunker Hill. Now, the museum looks toward its second decade with expansion plans that would greatly increase its exhibition space

Yesterday, The Broad's founding director Joanne Heyler announced plans to add 55,000 square feet of new construction at the rear of the museum complex, on what is now unused area overlooking Hope Street to the west. The project would represent a 70 percent increase in The Broad's size.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro, which designed the original museum building, is returning for the sequel. The existing structure at 2nd Street and Grand Avenue, described as the “veil and vault," with a white honeycomb exterior wrapping a sculpted grey core, would be flipped for the expansion, which is shown with a concrete exterior.

Exterior rendering of the existing and expanded BroadThe Broad / Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) / Plomp

Within, plans call for new galleries on the first, second, and third floors, as well as open -air courtyards and flexible spaces capable of hosting performances and multimedia installations. Likewise, the expansion would include a new space allowing visitors to walk between racks filled with artwork from The Broad's 2,000-piece collection, combining gallery and storage space.

“I think of the new building as a companion to the existing Broad,” said Elizabeth Diller in a news release. “The pair shares DNA, but each has its own distinct character and purpose in constant dialogue with its counterpart. The original Broad was conceived as an unfolding experience starting in the lobby, traveling up the escalator piercing the vault, landing in the third-floor gallery immersed in the collection, then snaking down through collection storage on the way back to the street. The challenge of adding more space to the building was to retain this intuitive circulation and logic while introducing a set of completely new experiences for the visitor.”

The expansion, which the Los Angeles Times reports will cost $100 million, is set to break ground in early 2025 and open in advance of the 2028 Summer Olympics. The Broad will remain open during construction.

Rendering of a future gallery in the expanded Broad,featuring artworks from the Broad collection (L to R, front gallery): Amy Sherald, Kingdom, 2022; Elliott Hundley, Changeling, 2020; Patrick Martinez, Migration is Natural, 2021, picture me rollin’, 2016, Psychic Friends (Malcolm X), 2022, and They Tried to Bury Us, They Didn’t Know We Were Seeds(Dinos Christianopoulos), 2022; (back gallery): Mark Bradford,Corner of Desire and Piety, 2008 and Helter Skelter I, 2007.The Broad / Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) / Plomp

Founded by the late Eli Broad and his wife Edythe, The Broad's collection focuses on artwork from the 1950s through present, including pieces from Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol, among others. Since its debut in 2015, the museum's surroundings have seen the completion of The Grand, a mixed-use high-rise complex designed by Frank Gehry, as well as the Regional Connector's Grand Av Arts/Bunker Hill Station, which connects to the rear of the museum via pedestrian bridge.

Construction of the museum expansion will overlap with work on another Bunker Hill institution, the Colburn School, which recently began work on a $335-million facility featuring a 1,000-seat concert hall one block to the east.

An expansion of The Broad is a more ambitious use of the currently vacant plot of concrete at the museum's back than previously intended. Officials had previously considered converting the space into a landscaped plaza.

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