The New South Wales government has marked a date to open doors to the Art Gallery of New South Wales expansion project, also known as the Sydney Modern.
Premier Dominic Perrottet announced on 26 April that after several years in the pipeline, an official opening has been scheduled to take place on 3 December 2022.
“This is a major investment in art, artists and culture, and sends a strong signal of confidence for a vibrant and exciting future,” Premier Perrottet said of the $344 million expansion.
Pritzker Prize laureates Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, of Japanese practice SANAA, were announced the winners of the international design competition for the expansion in 2015. Architectus is the executive architect for the project.
Construction began on the expansion in November 2019 that would double the exhibition footprint of the gallery and make use of the space to the north of the original building.
“A new standalone building, public art garden and revitalized historic building will bring together art, architecture and landscape in spectacular new ways, with dynamic galleries, site-specific works by leading Australian and international artists, and extensive outdoor spaces for everyone to enjoy,” said the Art Gallery of NSW.
Sejima and Nishizawa designed the modern wing as a lightweight matrix of pavilion-like structures that respond to the site’s natural topography.
The interlocking steel-framed pavilions sink into the landscape and integrate the land bridge over the freeway below and the subterranean heritage structures.
The Sydney Modern wing will be home to a permanent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander gallery, and museum curators have already commissioned nine original artworks of which more than half are by female artists and three by Indigenous artists.
A decommissioned World War II naval fuel bunker will be repurposed as an immersive underground art space for special commissions and performances, designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer
Image:
Art Gallery of New South Wales
A decommissioned World War II naval fuel bunker will be repurposed and reimagined as an immersive underground art space for special commissions and performances.
Alongside the new building by SANAA and Architectus, local architecture practice Tonkin Zulaikha Greer has been engaged to restore and revitalize a series of spaces in the 150-year-old gallery as part of the project.
The Sydney Modern is poised to be one of the most ambitious cultural landmarks since the opening of the Sydney Operah House almost 50 years ago.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
