Location: Los Angeles, USA.

Architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The museum’s design, dubbed “the veil and the vault,” combines the building’s two main functions: a public exhibition area and the archive/storage that will support The Broad Art Foundation’s lending activities. The archive/storage isn’t relegated to a secondary position; rather, “the vault” plays a crucial part in determining how visitors experience the museum from arrival to departure. Its large, opaque mass, which hovers in the middle of the structure, is always visible. The lobby below and the paths used by the public are shaped by the underside’s carvings. The exhibition space’s floor serves as its top surface. The “veil,” an airy, cellular exoskeleton structure that extends across the block-long gallery and delivers filtered natural illumination, surrounds the vault on all sides. The “veil” of the museum lifts at the corners, luring guests into a bustling lobby with a bookstore and coffee shop. After being carried upstairs by an escalator and passing through an archive, the public eventually emerges onto an acre of column-free exhibition space that is illuminated by diffuse light. This 24-foot-high area can be configured into galleries in any way to suit the needs of the curator. Returning from the display area requires a lengthy stairway journey into the vault, which provides glimpses into the collection’s extensive holdings.

Photo credit: Iwan Baan.