The best contemporary art in Los Angeles

In the heart of Downtown Los Angeles, the eponymous museum is as much of an architectural masterpiece as the celebrated, silver, Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Hall next door. Veiled in a white, latticed honeycomb of fibreglass and concrete, the three-storey structure filters natural light in from all sides, while a concrete core protects its collection of more than 2,000 contemporary artworks. From the outside, it's quietly, elegantly beautiful - the sort of gallery Apple might design - but inside it is gloriously capacious, its top-floor gallery providing 35,000sq ft of column-free space in which to show works.

These are not any old artworks, either. The couple have bought contemporary pieces since the 1960s, and still purchase about one work a week. All the biggest names are here, from Damien Hirst and Andreas Gursky to Jasper Johns, William Kentridge, Barbara Kruger, Charles Ray, Ed Ruscha, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol.

Perhaps even more impressive than the variety of works the gallery holds, though, is the volume of pieces by single artists. Hanging on the walls is the biggest group of Cindy Shermans in the world. The greatest number of Jeff Koons sculptures. The most Roy Lichtensteins (unless you count works in the Lichtenstein Foundation). And a 573-strong Joseph Beuys collection.

It has also created specific spaces for certain artists. On the bottom floor there is an entire area devoted to Takashi Murakami, a darkened media-room to show a new video piece by the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, and a specially installed space to house Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrored Room (which, when shown in New York, was so popular that crowds of people queued for hours in the snow to experience it).

Although very little of the art seems fresh (there are so many well-known works in here that you feel like you've seen everything before), it's worth making the trip downtown to see the building. Just stepping into the sculpted, polished grey-concrete entrance hall and being whisked up a 105ft escalator feels like a treat.

Wonderfully, too, it's free. 'Contemporary art,' Eli Broad told us, 'is an important mirror that reflects the social and political messages of our time. It's important for people to be able to read those messages - whether that's looking at Barbara Kruger's Your Body Is A Battleground or photographs of the Missouri riots. And we didn't want an admission fee to put them off. We have created an endowment so that no one ever will have to.'

The building, the 82-year-old says, is the result of a lifetime's mission to give his home city a cultural institute it deserves. 'Los Angeles is now the contemporary art capital of the world,' he says. 'It has more galleries than any other city - and now some of the best art. And that makes me proud.'

The Broad
Address: 221 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
Telephone: 001 213 232 6200
Website: thebroad.org

3 more great galleries in LA

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Grand)

Just near The Broad, the city's main modern gallery holds more than 7,000 pieces, from Giacometti sculptures to a whole room of Rothkos. While the building is less impressive than The Broad, it has a more diverse collection. As our gallery guide put it: 'Over the road you get the Big Five. Here you get the rest.'

Address: 250 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles
Telephone: +1 213 626 6222
Website: moca.org

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)