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SANAA selected to design a daylight-filled modern wing for this revered Australian art museum

SANAA selected to design a daylight-filled modern wing for this revered Australian art museum

New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
New gallery by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)

Tokyo-based architecture firm SANAA has won an international competition to design a new modern wing for the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The firm beat out the likes of David Chipperfield, Renzo Piano, and Herzog & de Meuron for the commission, know as the “Sydney Modern Project.”

The $450 million scheme includes the creation of an entirely new building comprising three grass-topped pavilions set on existing parkland. This will double the size of the existing gallery.

“We proposed making a number of plates, each containing a gallery,” SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima told ArchitectureAU. “The plates sit along the topography. So every plate has a slightly different relationship to nature.”

SANAA will also be implementing strategies to increase daylight within the gallery’s current 19th century home. Those involved in the selection process praised SANAA’s scheme for the way it subtly adds to the gallery without dominating its existing building or the adjacent open space.

SANAA’s design will be refined over the next year, and is slated to be completed in 2021—just in time for the gallery’s 150th birthday.

New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
New gallery space by SANAA. (Courtesy SANAA via Art Gallery of New South Wales.)
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