The art collector and billionaire Nicolas Berggruen is due to reveal the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron’s design for his Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles this spring. Berggruen has bought a 450-acre plot in the Santa Monica Mountains, close to the Getty Center, for the political and cultural thinktank.
The new institute will involve artists, writers, philosophers and architects. The Los Angeles-based collector Eli Broad and the former UK prime minister Tony Blair sit on the institute’s governance group. Last May, Berggruen announced plans to create a $500m endowment for the project.
Berggruen is the son of the late German-Jewish dealer Heinz Berggruen. He founded the Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust to support the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and the Berggruen Museum in Berlin, as well as the institute. The trust’s collection includes works by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter.
