Broad museum takes shape

The billionaire philanthropist initiated a secret competition of six architecture teams to come up with designs for the proposed downtown museum site next to Walt Disney Concert Hall. NYT reports that a jury selected designs by Rem Koolhaas and Diller Scofidio & Renfro. Broad could make the final selection as early as this this week, report the Times.

The competition brief calls for roughly 35,000 square feet of gallery space and a 45,000-square-foot archive of works, to be used as a lending library for art museums around the world. With a level of detail unusual for such a brief, Mr. Broad specified, according to those familiar with his plans, that a 5,000-square-foot lobby, a 3,500-square-foot bookstore and part of the archives should be located on the first floor; archives, office space and a conference room on the second; and the galleries on the third and final floor, so that they could be illuminated with skylights.

You might recall that Broad had championed a plan by Koolhaas to tear down most of the six-building Los Angeles County Museum of Art and replace it with a new structure. That idea was scratched after the trustees realized that it would require closing down the complex for three years.