The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at Santa Monica College

Renzo Zecchetto

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at Santa Monica College

October 2008

Architect

Eli and Edythe Broad offers different art forms including: theater, dance, film, opera, jazz, world music, musicals, symphony, chamber orchestras, family programming and more. The Broad Stage does not only have events and shows for students, but is also open to the public as well.

Before the Broad Stage was constructed, it was the site of Madison Elementary School which was closed on September 24, 1985 due to over declining enrollment and money shortage. Over the course of 23 years, the land of the school was an empty lot waiting to be used. SMC procured the lease for the land and converted it to the Performing Arts Campus with a state of the art stage. Eli Broad and his wife Edythe used their foundation, 'The Broad Foundation,' to endow the stage with $10 million in funding. The seating arrangements are intimate making you, the audience, closer to the stage. This allows the audience to make more eye contact with the performers on stage and connect more personally with the event.

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at Santa Monica covers area of 28,000 sf.  The exterior of this building is glass and formed wood elements that are covered with concrete. The concrete embrace(s) the wood molding inside to highlight the grain of the wood and make the horizontal lines more visible. Up top, the open cantilever porch has no post holding it up. It has a modern grid made from wood paneling. The center of the building faces east with the entrance situated on the eastern axis of the building. The northern-southern sides are made of silver metals, glass, and concrete with grass enhancing the wall surfaces of the exterior. Taking a look into the inside, the stage runs 40 ft wide by 38 ft deep with a Marley floor. It provides 499 seats with arrangements by row in alphabetical order and seats by the number, with a maximum capacity of 538 people. The stage mostly caters to dance and musical performances. In the upper deck where the box seats are, they have plains coming out of the wall. As you walk around there are various pieces of art on the wall with a lounge space upstairs just before you enter the doors to the seating arrangements of the box seats.  It has a spacious open floor plan with seating so that guests don't have to go downstairs and wait for the show to start. They also have ventilating walls and light boxes across the walls with a geometric figure to produce more lighting. 

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center opened its doors in October 2008. 

Ashley Haywood and Michelle Rodas

Renzo Zecchetto Architects is a architectural firm which is committed to designing buildings and furniture based on their experience in urban design and planning. The Corpartes, which Renzo Zecchetto designed in 2015, is a concert hall in Santiago, Chile that has a 60,000 square footage. It is an concert hall that has a diverse range of different arts such as: music, film, and avant garde dance. The concert hall has over 899 seats underground providing a upper level of a ticket booth and landscaping. The exterior of the Corpartes includes metal looking panels that are shaped into squares. Around the back side, it wraps around with large windows that allow natural lighting to enter the hall. 



Comparing the Corpartes and the Broad Stage, they both compare with similar paneling of a metal like appearance. Both on the outside for  they use silver metal seating, with both of it's insides that have wood paneling on the walls of the entrance of the hall and stage. And lastly, from the ceilings of both we have natural lighting coming in because the structure of the building allows the glass windows from above to bring the light in. 

http://www.zecchetto.com/   

-Discovers what  architectural services Renzo Zecchetto provides. Gives an insight on the designs he made and the planning he took to accommodate the land space to build the architect.  

https://thebroadstage.org/the-broad-stage

- Gives information of the overview, lighting, audio, video, and the stage.

https://www.thebroadstage.org/the-edye

-Gives information of The Edye of the measurements of the inside.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-broad11-2008oct11-story.html

-An article of the LA Times, gives information of who design the architect, when it open, and describes The Broad Stage.

https://www.archdaily.com/879176/corpartes-theater-and-cultural-center-renzo-zecchetto-architects

-Explains another similar architect Renzo Zecchetto designed in comparison to the Broad Stage.