Sydney Modern Project ─ Expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Our vision for the Sydney Modern Project stems primarily from the creation of an open public space, a terraced landscape that can be accessed from all sides connecting the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens with the harbour. A large cultural plaza unifies the front of the museum and the new extension, providing a space for artistic interventions, performances and events, conceived as a sequence of indoor and outdoor gathering places for the citizens of Sydney. Above this new landscape, adjacent to the existing building of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, visitors will encounter two bold interlocking volumes which seem to levitate above the ground, evoking platforms and caves, metaphors of a landscape and a culture rooted in the collective memory of the place. Aboriginal rock art found in archaeological sites blend into our minds with photos of the unfinished Opera House and with sculptural interactions of solids and voids, becoming poetic images which inform the logic rationale of the project. The design expresses, therefore, a primordial opposition which articulates the concept of the extension: the aspiration to overcome gravity and the will to be anchored to the earth. The public collection areas are located above the ground level whereas the non-public spaces (storage, conservation, archive, creative offices and workshops) are below the landscaped terraces descending towards the harbour. The foyer, the public amenities and the temporary exhibition halls occupy the space between the floating volumes and the park. The exhibition galleries are organized in two floors, as a sequence of flexible rooms with ceiling heights of 4.5 and 6 meters. The multipurpose theatre and the venue spaces are located below the ground level with a direct link to the foyer and to the outdoor terraces. Two bridges -for public and non-public uses- connect the new wing to the existing museum, while a “carved” void housing the main staircase runs vertically through the whole building, providing a direct access to the restaurant and terrace on the rooftop with breathtaking views of the Bay and the harbour. The new Sydney Modern wing will join the parkland and the existing museum in a dialogue between city and nature, architecture and topography, in other words, between a contemporary abstraction of space and a personal interpretation of the place.

Enrique Sobejano
Fuensanta Nieto