Eli Broad considered, architecturally speaking

Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne considers the record as Eli Broad prepares to cause another museum to be erected in Los Angeles, probably Downtown on Bunker Hill. This one would hold Broad's own extensive collection. From Hawthorne's critic's notebook:

For all of Broad's consistent prominence on the public stage in recent years, the buildings he 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.

When Broad is intimately involved in a building project, as he is likely to be on the forthcoming museum, his relentless personal style can sear right through his relationships with the architects he has so carefully courted. During design and construction, he often gets mired in personal battles or disputes over budgets and the tiniest architectural details.

In short, Broad the client often trips up Broad the patron.

He has good things to say too, but Hawthorne concludes: "Perhaps cities wind up with the patrons they deserve....Few of [L.A.'s] cultural institutions are robust enough to chart their own courses separate from the demands of influential donors."