Feature: Exciting New Plans for MSU's Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
MSU has chosen Zaha Hadid, one of the world’s foremost architects and winner of the international Pritzker Prize, to design the Broad Art Museum.
World-renowned architect Zaha Hadid of London has been selected as the winner in the design competition for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. Hadid joined the Broads at two public events, in Troy and East Lansing, on January 15 where MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon announced the winner.
“With today’s announcement of Zaha Hadid as the architect of record for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, we take one step closer to bringing this extraordinary project to life,” Simon said. “We were fortunate to have the work of many world-class architects submitted for the competition but Ms. Hadid’s design truly captured the spirit of what this iconic building will represent to MSU’s campus and the Greater mid-Michigan community that will benefit from its presence in the area.”
The announcement is the culmination of a competition that began in June 2007 when the Broads gave a gift of $26 million to help fund the new museum, which will focus on modern and contemporary art. The other finalists were: Coop Himmelb(l)au (Vienna and Los Angeles); Morphosis (Santa Monica, Calif.); Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects, PC (New York); and Randall Stout Architects, Inc. (Los Angeles).
Hadid, founding partner of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 and is internationally known for both her theoretical and academic work. In addition to the Pritzker Prize, her work has received numerous awards from the world’s most prestigious institutions, including the Mies van der Rohe Foundation of European Architecture; the American Institute of Architects; the Royal Institute of British Architects; the Royal Academy of Arts; the International Olympic Committee; the Austrian Commissions for Science and Art; Columbia University; and Yale University.
Some of Hadid’s best-known completed projects include the Vitra Fire Station and the LFone Pavilion in Weil am Rhein, Germany; the Mind Zone at the Millennium Dome, London; a tram station and car park in Strasbourg, France; a ski-jump and Nordpark Cable Railway in Innsbruck, Austria; the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, Ohio; the BMW Central Building in Leipzig, Germany; the Hotel Puerta America interior in Madrid, Spain; the Ordrupgaard Museum Extension in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Phaeno Science Center, Wolfsburg, Germany; and the Maggie’s Centre, Fife, Scotland.
When completed, the Broad Art Museum at MSU will be Hadid’s first building on a university campus and her second completed project in the United States.
“I am absolutely delighted to be building the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University,” Hadid said. “Art museums are centers for the exchange of ideas, showcasing the art that feeds the cultural life of the community. I believe we can create buildings that evoke original experiences, inspire people and make them excited about new ideas. The sculptural folds of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum’s design and enigmatic qualities of its steel and glass surface follow a coherent formal logic, offering a sense of unlimited possibilities.”
The 41,000-square-foot building will comprise three levels, including a basement. It will be constructed of steel and concrete with an aluminum and glass exterior and be adjoined by an expansive outdoor sculpture garden to the east. The museum will stand on the corner of Grand River Avenue and Farm Lane at the Collingwood campus entrance.
The museum will include more than 18,000 square feet of space for the following collections: special exhibitions; modern and contemporary art; new media; photography; works on paper; and the permanent collection – encyclopedic (pre-1945). Additional space will include an education center, museum shop, visitor café and gathering space and staff offices.
“We are delighted with Zaha Hadid's design and look forward to the construction of a world-class art museum at Michigan State,” said Eli Broad. “This new museum will create an important cultural connection between the university and the broader Lansing and Michigan community.”
Groundbreaking for the museum is planned for fall 2008 and completion of the project is expected in 2010.
For more information, see the Special Report at special.newsroom.msu.edu/broadmuseum/.
MSU’S NEW WORLD-CLASS ELI AND EDYTHE BROAD ART MUSEUM
By Linda O. Stanford, Associate Provost for Academic Services and Manager, Art Museum Design Team.
It was immediately apparent on January 15th that art lifts the spirit. That was the day the answer came: President Simon announced her decision based on the jury’s recommendation. The architect for MSU’s new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum is Zaha Hadid, one of the foremost architects practicing in the world today. The architect is a winner of the prestigious international Pritzker Prize for her work located on several continents.
Last summer, MSU staged an architectural competition with five internationally recognized firms to call for a memorable design, an icon to inspire and draw people to campus from near and far. This is what Eli (MSU, ’54) and Edythe Broad, visionary donors, dreamed. This is what MSU will have, --- a sign of creativity and inspiration equally inviting to campus and community.
Made possible by the Broads’ $26 million gift, the Broad Art Museum will be a place to discover, explore, and reflect. The museum’s exterior crisscrossed angles of aluminum and glass will lead inside to reveal a variety of changing spaces. Each gallery will be unique to offer those who enter a different experience. Space will unfold as natural light filters throughout the street and mezzanine levels.
From all directions, angular shapes will engage passersby from campus and East Lansing as they approach the building site at the Collingwood entrance where Grand River Avenue and Farm Lane meet. In the museum’s sculpture garden, a signature sculpture will complement the trees preserved as part of MSU’s commitment to its land-grant heritage and its Campus Master Plan. Ecological sustainable features will enable LEED certification.
With this new, large, and vital space, the art museum will offer more varied and innovative exhibitions than are possible now and will become known for a collection of modern and contemporary art funded by a portion of the Broad gift. New media, works on paper, photography, and the pre-1945 permanent collection will be displayed. There will be more than 18,000 square feet of gallery space.
For Hadid and her London-based firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, the Broad Art Museum will be the firm’s second building in the United States. Hadid welcomed this commission on a university campus to engage with the challenge of creating a space, a living sculpture, to transform the ways in which we experience art and challenge our eyes and minds.
When the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum is complete, its role as a bridge to the future will begin. Attendance will increase and MSU’s art museum will be ready to expand its contribution to the enhancement of the cultural life of the region.
Hadid and her staff are already planning for the ground-breaking in fall 2008 and completion in late 2010. To find news, visit Special Reports, University Relations for new and archived images and information: special.newsroom.msu.edu/broadmuseum/
BRICK PROGRAM TO HONOR BEATRICE PAOLUCCI
Those who wish to honor Bea Paolucci, the late professor of family and child ecology, can contribute toward the purchase of an art work in Bea's honor at the new Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, which will be on the site of the former Paolucci Building (the Home Management Building known to many alums).
Bricks from the Paolucci Building are available for $100 each (a pair would make memorable book ends, symbolic of Bea’s emphasis on research). One option is to offer your bricks to the Laboratory Preschool at the former Central School for their new Playground.
For more information, visit www.msusurplusstore.msu.edu (search for Paolucci Bricks).
