The NSW Art Gallery’s North Building, designed by Tokyo-based practice SANAA in collaboration with Architectus, has reached completion, with the design culminating in a world-class facility most worthy of its siting and cultural significance.

Unveiled at an exclusive media briefing on Tuesday, the new gallery is imagined as a series of boxes wrapped in a glass facade that jut out at slightly offset angles and cascade in step with the topography of the site. The intricacies are countless, with handcrafted textures culminating in an ethereal, elegant, light and moving experience.

NSW Premier and self-professed ‘Head Architect’ Dominic Perrottet wasn’t short on superlatives as he was on hand to welcome visitors to the gallery.

“This is the most significant cultural build of our time since the Sydney Opera House. Every city has a great art gallery, and this is what we have delivered for New South Wales, for the country and for the world.”

sydney modern art gallery

Speaking personally to SANAA Founders Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, Perrottet was glowing in his praise.

“You have opened up a dead space for people around the world to come to Sydney to enjoy. I do hope what you have designed through this wonderful architecture inspires many people in our state to create beauty.”

Michael Brand, Art Gallery of New South Wales Director, fittingly describes how the visitor’s experience is as much about the way the building feels as how it looks.

“This has been the project of a lifetime for us at the art gallery, to match SANAA’s architectural vision with a curatorial narrative that offers a seamless experience across art, architecture and landscape,” he says.

The multi-level space sees floorplates merge into ceilings, with 250 metres of rammed earth wall cutting through the glass threshold to connect inside and outside spaces. The boxes conflict one another, with roof lines differentiating in height and ground planes sloping on eclectic gradients. 150 columns support the structure stretching full height through the atrium and between floors.

sydney modern art gallery

The 2200 sqm Tank space (pictured bottom), accessed via a spiral staircase, is in complete juxtaposition of the corresponding galleries. The Tank sits underground, and was formerly a decommissioned World War II naval fuel tank. It is reached by descending a darkening spiral staircase offering glimpses of the dark, colonnaded space below.

"It's amazing. What has come to fruition is just incredible and I don’t think I would change anything,” says Architectus Senior Associate, John Jeffrey.”

It’s impressive in its materiality, in the way it accepts light and in the way it merges with the landscape. It’s unprecedented.”

sydney modern art gallery

SANAA’s Ryue Nishizawa (pictured above left) says the practice endeavoured to blur the lines of internal and external.

“To feel architecture and nature together, this is something that we tried to do here,” he says.

“Our architecture is situated on a slope with different topography (to the Opera House) but you can feel nature and this is kind of similar.”

sydney modern art gallery

The Art Gallery of New South Wales North Building opens to the public on Saturday December 3rd. For more information, visit www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au.

This article was co-written by Jarrod Reedie and Indesignlive Assistant Editor Timothy Alouani-Roby.

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