Art Gallery NSW – SANAA
On 3 December 2022 the Art Gallery of New South Wales has officially opened its extension, a work of the Japanese firm SANAA, the joint practice of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. Called Sydney Modern, it is the result of a 2015 competition.
High on a small hill, close to the Royal Botanic Garden, the original Art Gallery of New South Wales took up a building raised late in the 19th century. The expansion contains 7,000 square meters of exhibition space plus education facilities, a restaurant, a café, and event venues. A series of interconnected pavilions with roofs of varying size adapts to the topography while taking views into account and deferring to existing trees, and a large protected square has the effect of visually unifying the entire ciomplex. This space between the original museum and its extension acts as an entrance area, from where the visitor can go up to the terraces created on the slope of the hill and enjoy vistas of Woolloomooloo Bay. Sydney Modern includes a 2,200-square-meter, 7-meter-high underground space where the Australian Navy stored fuel during World War II, reusing it as a hall for displaying large artworks.
