Progress at The Broad

(Excerpted from a recent story in ENR California, by Greg Aragon)

Another description-defying building—which resembles a honeycomb with sharp edges—is taking shape in Los Angeles, directly across the street from the mother lode of nontraditional architecture—the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The Broad, a $140-million museum for contemporary art, is nowhere near as impossible to render into a three-dimensional object as was architect Frank Gehry’s exuberant music palace. Still, it is not at all simple to build, says the contractor.

Called a vault in a veil—the museum will actually store as well as display art—the 120,000-sq-ft building is extremely challenging to construct thanks to its asymmetry and its amorphous shape, says Roger Fricke, senior vice president of preconstruction for the job’s general contractor, Santa Fe Springs-based MATT Construction.

For help, the building team turned to a 3D modeling tool called Digital Project, developed by Gehry Technologies. “The reason for using DP is the complicated nature of the shapes and the geometry of the building,” Fricke says. “It is the most robust modeling software that we know of right now.”

The museum, designed by New York City-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) with the local Gensler as executive architect, is joining the downtown’s cultural center along Grand Avenue.

Click here for the complete ENR story by Greg Aragon, and more photographs of The Broad under construction.

Photo Courtesy of The Broad museum