The New Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum on Michigan State University's East Lansing campus bursts from its traditional collegiate setting like a futuristic concertina pushing free from the deep pit of the devil's orchestra. 'It is a strange object sitting on the edge of campus,' admits Zaha Hadid, but one with a magnetic quality, she points out. 'This radically abstract object,' adds her partner Patrik Schumacher, 'brings this element of making strange'of building something to be explored and discovered.'
The need to house a growing art collection and expand programming, aided by a whopping $26 million gift from businessman, philanthropist, and MSU alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, in 2007, provided the genesis for the project. The original idea was to build an extension to MSU's Kresge Art Center, a midcentury building tucked far into campus, housing the Department of Art, Art History, and Design as well as the esteemed Kresge collection of 7,500 works dating from the Greek and Roman periods through the present day. But Eli Broad wanted to do something more transformative. University president Lou Anna K. Simon agreed and identified the prominent site of the 1947 Paolucci Building as the home for a new museum. Hugging the campus's northern edge on the busy, commercial Grand River Avenue, the location would assure visibility and encourage community engagement. MSU organized a competition, selecting Zaha Hadid Architects in 2008 (from a shortlist that included Coop Himmelb(l)au, Morphosis, Kohn Pedersen Fox, and Randall Stout Architects). After Broad chipped in another $2 million and the Paolucci Building had been razed, the museum broke ground in early 2010.
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