Global search for the art gallery expansion project: Michael Brand outside the Art Gallery of NSW. Photo: Brett Hemmings
By Julie Power
October 22, 2014, The Sydney Morning Herald – New South Wales
Will we get an inside out building like the Pompidou Centre in Paris, an organic twirl like the Roche Tower in Basel, or something totally different?
Some of the world’s most innovative architects including Renzo Piano, who first came to fame with the Centre Georges Pompidou, will compete to develop the winning concept for a $450 million expansion of the Art Gallery of NSW.
The project, Sydney Modern, is expected to double the size of the gallery. It will also create a great cultural plaza that connects the gallery with the Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens of NSW.
Japanese architects Sejima and Nishizawa are known for the New Museum of Contemporary art building in New York.
The gallery’s director Michael Brand said on Tuesday he was excited so many leading architects would be “so inspired by our site and vision as to want to have a go at it”.
The 12 firms, winnowed down from a list of about 30 firms suggested by experts, were chosen to represent diversity of size, location, culture and emerging talent. They include Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, who designed the Roche Tower and transformed the old Bankside power station in London into the Tate Modern, London’s David Chipperfield Architects, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa SANAA Tokyo who designed the new museum of contemporary art in New York, Kerry Hill Architects in Singapore and RMA Architects in Mumbai. Read more…