BCAM, School for Performing Arts, Caltrans, Broad Stage in Santa Monica via You Are Here
Philanthropist Eli Broad's influence on the arts in LA may be well-known, but his record at putting up fabulous-looking building isn't so great, writes Christopher Hawthorne in the LA Times, noting that "the buildings [Broad] has helped develop make up a disparate, even contradictory group. They don't reflect a single aesthetic vision or chart the growth of a few chosen architects over time. If the buildings have any common thread, in fact, it is disappointment: Broad has collaborated with some of the most talented firms in the world, to be sure. But he has also overseen some of their least impressive work."
Additionally, Broad has essentially shut out the public when it comes to the proposed downtown building's design, according to the story, which comes as Broad is preparing his next museum.
Broad would probably disagree with Hawthorne given his column last December in the Huffington Post: In his Top 10 list of reasons to love Los Angeles, number 8 was "Architecture." Broad wrote: "Civilizations aren't remembered by their bankers or lawyers or accountants. They're remembered by their artists and architects. From the Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry to the Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral by Rafael Moneo to MOCA by Arata Isozaki to the Broad Contemporary Art Museum by Renzo Piano to the Caltrans building by Thom Mayne, we have great architecture all around us."
· Eli Broad: L.A.'s peripatetic patron [LA Times]
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