NGV Contemporary, Melbourne
Our vision is for a gallery that looks beyond the ground plane to create out-reaching exhibition and public spaces at higher levels; opening to sky, city and gardens. A spectacular vertical landscape that merges the Gallery precinct with Kings Domain and the Botanic Gardens. In place of natural and cultural abundance, imbued with an ambience of freshness and joy.
Comfortably accessed and approached from all directions at street level, the design will bring the vertical landscape to the pavement via a system of generous architectural ascents of stairs, walkways, ramps and escalators. A triple volume lobby will open to the public realm and the surrounding streets simultaneously. The Gallery will be an accumulation of exhibition ‘vessels’ of various sizes, unfurling to the ‘vertical garden’ visible from the public realm ‘horizontal garden’, allowing an easy orientation for the visitor and reducing the need for additional way-finding signage. The views from the circulation will reveal and heighten vistas towards the cityscape such as the Arts Center Spire, the Domain and the Botanic Gardens and the city’s towers.
A fusion of architecture and landscape – a melding of interior and exterior spaces – will give the Gallery the character of an institution that reconciles the best of nature and of the city in a contemporary, sustainable manner. This design intent and its focus on a seamless integration of in and outdoors will be achieved by several directives. The Gallery ‘vessels’ will be open to the landscape, enveloped in non-reflective extra-clear glass. Material, colors, patterns and furniture will flow from interior to outdoor gardens in the vertical landscape.
At the exhibition levels, will be civic ‘Living Rooms’ for visitors. The design intent is to create an expansive and comfortable urban lounge where all visitors feel at home. Large seats and sofas, art-oriented playgrounds facing the cityscape, will convey at each floor a relaxed and salubrious feeling.
