MSU is ready to go bold with museum design
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER



EAST LANSING -- Michigan State University broke ground Tuesday on what promises to become a postcard architectural image for the school, the state, and for American museum design.


Designed by Zaha Hadid, the Baghdad, Iraq-born architect who ranks among the world's foremost designers, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum features a sharply angular, glass and pleated stainless steel skin that boldly goes where no Michigan building has gone before.

Created to house MSU's collection of modern art, the building vies to become a tourist attraction in its own right.

MSU President Lou Anna Simon said as much introducing Hadid on Tuesday at the ground-breaking. "This Zaha Hadid design will send the message we want: that great art deserves great architecture," Simon said.

Hadid herself said she hoped her museum "captures the imagination, presenting endless possibilities for exhibitions in state-of-the-art galleries."



Michigan already sports notable examples of modernist architecture from mid-20th-Century designers, including Minoru Yamasaki, Marcel Breuer and Eero Saarinen.

But the state has nothing quite like what Hadid envisions -- a slinky, iconic and probably controversial addition to the roster of the state's significant buildings.

Tuesday's ground-breaking did not come easy. It occurred about a year after MSU had planned when it chose Hadid's design in early 2008.

Hadid's complex design, with its numerous facets and crinkles, proved so expensive that it took another year of engineering to bring the cost into line.

Even with the changes, the museum will cost about $45 million for the three-level structure. Detroit native and MSU alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, are donating $28 million of that, with more raised from private donors.





Eli Broad, 76, made a fortune starting a real estate company now known as KB Home and the financial giant SunAmerica. He and his wife are major figures in U.S. philanthropy and rank among MSU's key benefactors.

"I'm an alumnus of MSU, and this is a great university, and it's good to give back," he said.

Despite Hadid's fame, the project will be only her second built in the U.S., after a museum in Cincinnati.

Asked why Michigan and Ohio have proved more hospitable to her work than trend capitals like New York and Los Angeles, Hadid said, "I think maybe people assume that New York or other places are less conservative, and I don't think it's an accurate reading. So maybe other cities have more ambitions, and can make it happen."

More than 200 MSU students, faculty, trustees and well-wishers attended the ground-breaking, cheering as MSU mascot Sparty appeared atop a crane ferociously waving a shovel.

Contact JOHN GALLAGHER: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com