Broad museum still looking for funding
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Despite gaps in funding, university officials are moving forward with the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum project, set to break ground in March 2010 and open sometime in 2012.
“We don’t have all the money raised,” President Lou Anna K. Simon said. “You get to a place where the costs double and there’s a question of whether the building will be built, (but) the cost parameters are within our $40 million range. … That’s why we want to do the bids now, to make sure that when we go back and try to finish our discussions with our key donors, that they know the building will be built.”
Bids for foundation, steel and mechanical work will determine if the museum will stay within budget, said Jed Dingens, owner of Dingens Architects in Corunna, Mich., and a former MSU professor who has seen the museum’s most recent designs.
“They’ve already got the most important parts out to bid so they can budget correctly,” he said.
Exactly how much money has yet to be raised was not revealed by university officials.
“(It was) a decision made by people doing the fundraising (to not release exact fundraising estimates). It’s a big project and we’re on schedule, but (they’re) not going to release the numbers right now,” said Linda Stanford, associate provost for academic services.
Stanford declined to elaborate on the museum’s financial state.
Earlier this month, the university announced the creation of an advisory board to guide the progress of the museum in areas including leadership and financial sustainability.
“The advisory committee was another double-check that we’re on the right track,” Simon said.
Boards such as MSU’s are normal for most art museums, said Chai Lee, spokesman for the Art Institute of Chicago, in an e-mail.
“Every cultural institution has an advisory board,” he said. “The job of the (board) is to advise on all aspects of the life of the museum: approve acquisition of new art works for the permanent collection, advise on buildings and grounds issues, elect advisors for the museum, advise on museum finance.”
Original designs for the museum called for pleated walls and a pleated roof. After the initial designs were reviewed, concerns arose over what would happen when snow collected in the pleats. Officials are revising designs to be more “realistic,” but the pleated walls and roof will remain, Dingens said.
Designs are being examined to ensure functionality and elegance, Simon said.
“There’s been a lot of work done to make sure that the inside of the building works,” she said. “It’s not just an externally architectural statement, but that actually it’s a very functional building to display art.”
Despite redesigning her original plans, the museum’s architect, Zaha Hadid, is paid for the entire project and not every design, Stanford said. Stanford declined to say how much Hadid would be paid for her work, but said the architect’s fee comes out of the project’s $40 million budget.
“As the design develops, changes are made,” she said.
In-kind donations, or donations of actual materials, might mitigate the amount of money needed to be raised for building materials and furniture, Simon said.
“But we don’t know really how much,” she said.
The project might come in over budget, Dingens said.
Commentary
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student
(10/12/09 12:21am)Report
Important part: Opening ground in March.
Another Student
(10/12/09 2:35pm)Report
They won’t release how much money has been donated and collected because the only money they have is what was already donated by Broad. No one is willing to donate to an ugly building. They are breaking ground to try and get more people to donate, but they will just have to stop production because of lack of funding. Not smart.
student
(10/12/09 2:59pm)Report
You are quite wrong. If there is something I frequently criticize is the lack of information students have regarding their University. Its not that the information is not out there, but that they are not willing to be informed beyond the stupid letters of the State News.
Obviously, they haven’t reached they haven’t reached the fundraising goal for the project but that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.
Actually, for the last year or so the architect was working with MSU staff to change different aspects of the project that were not really viable for Michigan weather and would help to reduce costs. Also, the addition of the advisory board, which has visited East Lansing, adds forward movement to the project. And, the fact that they already have a groundbreaking date is an indication that they are moving forward.
Of course, the economy has an impact in everything today and it, obviously, has an impact on donations to the University. On the other hand, as the public and alumni see the museum moving forward they’ll step up. This happens for every fundraising either for a building or an endowment, when people see more concrete things going on they step up.
Finally, this museum has been criticized by many students for being “ugly”. But, honestly, this will be one of the most influential buildings in the region and Michigan. There’s no building that compares to the creativity of this design. Also, I think people have been misled by the computer reproduction of how the building should look in reality. This will be a landmark. And, when you look at the great cities in the world they distinguish themselves for not being ordinary in their designs.
I think that Mr. Broad, MSU alumn, and his wife have made a great choice in spreading their love for the arts to East Lansing. This museum will impact all the way from the city and the region to the much needed arts and humanities disciplines on campus that have been somewhat forgotten.
Townsend
(10/12/09 3:17pm)Report
student,
thanks, as always, for your intelligent assessment of the situation. As for “another student”, I don’t know if MSU students are really this dumb or there are a bunch of U-M people trolling/impersonating MSU students… If I hear another: this is an ugly building crap comment, I’m going to puke. It really, really makes MSU students seem close-minded, artistically-challenged, and only caring about what bar to go get their next beer… It’s really sickening. I wish that, if posters really don’t have anything intelligent to say, they’d shut the hell up… It really reflects poorly on MSU and really might make the Broad’s think twice about spending so much $$ and effort on Eli’s alma mater.
J
(10/12/09 3:52pm)Report
Puke away, the building is modernist and ugly as sin.
Elizabeth
(10/12/09 4:46pm)Report
Why is there a need for ANOTHER art museum on campus? Kresge suits my needs just fine. Cons for the Broad’s project: a) There is no parking available for after the museum is finished, leading to more congestion on campus than there already is. b) The construction venture is not widely publicized on campus. No one really knows that much about it, so not very many people are informed about the travesty that is occurring. c) Why didn’t the Broads donate their hard-earned money for student enrichment? 40 million dollars, divided by 80 grand (approximate cost of tuition for one student for four years) comes out to 500 MSU students who could go to college for free, and they would contribute a lot more to the world than a frivolous art museum. d) The Broads already have an art museum dedicated to them: http://broadartfoundation.org/bcam/overview.html . Why do they need yet another one? Are their egos THAT small that they feel that the money they are appropriating to such a project could not be better spent? I may be just a lowly undergraduate student, but even I can see that the rich in America are spending immense amounts of money selfishly. Thank you, Broads, for your donation, but next time, please think of a better place where it could be spent.
Jonathan
(10/12/09 4:57pm)Report
What I want to know is why the University won’t release information on current funding for the project. This is a PUBLIC university and they should be held accountable for how they’re spending OUR money.
student
(10/12/09 5:52pm)Report
The University is public but the money is private.
If you have read anything about this project you would know that this museum is not an initiative of MSU but of MSU alumn Eli Broad.
I would say that more than half of the projects at MSU today are privately funded due to great alumni and terrible government support.
So, from the endowment to this project, from the new College of Human Medicine building in Grand Rapids to the upcoming upgrades in the College of Nursing, they are all with their money, not yours or mine.
Actually, private funding is much better because the intentions of the donors are more important, legally, than those of the general public which makes it tougher for liberals that want to know how much everything is worth. So, if the donors don’t want the numbers to be made public, then the University has to respect that condition.
Yes, Pres. Simon and Provost Wilcox are accountable for their actions, and they want to be accountable, but this stupidity of “accountability” just because its cool is ridiculous. How about every student being held accountable for their grades?
Again, when the only thing students read is the State News and they don’t read anything directly from the source of information they won’t never learn anything about their University or any other issue. This is one of the reasons students protest against University administration instead of the Capitol.
SteveL
(10/12/09 10:31pm)Report
why does this “space ship” need to be built on North Campus? It does not go well with the surrounding bvuildings and sticks out like an eyesore. If you are to build it, put it somewhere where it won’t clash with the surrounding buildings. And yes parking is nowhere to be found in the present location.Use the money towards a new aquatic center rather than this half baked idea.