The news of the death of Eli Broad yesterday has made me read his brief newspaper autobiography, published in the LA Times in May 2019 – pre- COVID. It’s an interesting and in many ways impressive life, making a great deal of money out of real estate and then getting involved in the arts: first, by establishing the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, with its building by Arata Isosaki on Bunker Hill, run to begin with by Pontus Hultèn; then Temporary Contemporary in 1983, designed by Frank Gehry, which he doesn’t mention; then the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA, designed by Renzo Piano, definitely not his best building; and finally The Broad itself on South Grand Avenue, right next door to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro. He made his fortune out of tract houses, but then spent it on civic monuments for his adopted city.
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