Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum
Changing contemporary exhibitions occupy Zaha Hadid’s pleated stainless-steel structure, where angled galleries and unexpected sightlines make architecture an active participant rather than a neutral container.
Artwork inspired by Gilda Snowden
The museum does not offer a stable highlights checklist. Its value lies in temporary projects, commissions, global contemporary work, and collection displays that change the relation among art, politics, technology, and the university.
Read the building from outside before entering, then test how a single work behaves across oblique walls and compressed passages. Free admission lowers the stakes of a shorter focused visit; Michigan State events raise the stakes of parking and traffic.
- Architect
- Zaha Hadid
- Opened
- 2012
- Program
- Changing contemporary exhibitions
Quick guide
- Begin with
- Set a question in faceted steel exterior
- Look closely at
- Test it against angled galleries
Let the angles slow down your looking
- Walk the exterior
- The stainless-steel folds change sharply with weather and position
- Test the galleries
- Notice how sloped walls and narrow views affect each installation
- Expect change
- Commissioned and temporary work defines the museum more than a fixed canon
- Cross the street
- Compare the building’s geometry with Michigan State’s older campus fabric
Good to know
Gallery access can narrow while installations change, even when the building is open; review the current exhibition list before making a special trip.
Notice these
- faceted steel exterior
- angled galleries
- changing commissions