The Art Gallery of NSW is set for a $244m revamp, although we see the gallery as somewhat of an establishment in the Sydney art scene, many of us have overlooked exactly how dated the venue has become. While a beautiful building, the good old Government has clearly seen some room for improvement.
In a similar vein to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Gallery of NSW is putting its best foot forward and totally rethinking its image.
As the Minister for Arts Don Harwin announced, the Art Gallery of NSW’s new venture is a “once in a generation commitment to major art and cultural projects”.
The finished renovation has been branded as the ‘global museum of the future’, the project will expand the site of the existing 19th Century gallery into the Royal Botanical Gardens. You can expect to see new spaces for live performance, film, installations and education, as well as an enormous push to provide state of the art facilities for the enormous existing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection. For too long this extraordinary display has been held underground in the basement galleries and the new project is the perfect opportunity to transform their presence within the gallery.
The new site will be stretching itself into the Woolloomooloo area, coveting an art precinct aesthetic, building bridges between the visual arts, Sydney Theatre Company and The Sydney Opera House. Heading the design will be Japanese Architecture firm SANAA.
With construction set to begin in 2019 and be completed by 2021, we all have something to look forward to in Sydney’s arts scene, and not a minute too soon.
Original Source found here.
