[VIS] Adelaide Contemporary Art Gallery - Designs on Page 6

[how good is he]

Anyone know if all the architects get re-imbursed for their services or is it only whoever wins gets paid (& what amount)? Also how is the winner decided and by whom? It also seems there is no clear direction forward with the Contemporary and/or the National Aboriginal Gallery even after a design wins/is chosen. When and by whom decides this?

[Nathan]

Anyone know if all the architects get re-imbursed for their services or is it only whoever wins gets paid (& what amount)? Also how is the winner decided and by whom? It also seems there is no clear direction forward with the Contemporary and/or the National Aboriginal Gallery even after a design wins/is chosen. When and by whom decides this?

All six of the shortlisted teams were paid an honorarium of AU$90,000 to develop their concepts. The competition has a jury, who will select a winner.

[Mpol03]

Hang on so is this still going ahead? I thought with the new Liberal gov the contemporary art gallery was to be axed?

[Pants]

very much fits the new brief around aboriginal art.

I'm not quite down with the assumption of a "new brief". I think it would be an appalling act to take the years of work and money spent by the art gallery to get this far, and just hand it all over to the museum. Marshall should be reminded that the Adelaide Contemporary is an initiative of AGSA, not a project of the former Labor government.

And Aboriginal art was always a focus of the Adelaide Contemporary. The Gallery of Time was the central feature highlighted in the competition brief.

100% agree with you about how terrible it would be to change it up now, but unfortunately, I think the assumption might be right based on what the new govt. has come out and said.

[ml69]

very much fits the new brief around aboriginal art.

I'm not quite down with the assumption of a "new brief". I think it would be an appalling act to take the years of work and money spent by the art gallery to get this far, and just hand it all over to the museum. Marshall should be reminded that the Adelaide Contemporary is an initiative of AGSA, not a project of the former Labor government.

And Aboriginal art was always a focus of the Adelaide Contemporary. The Gallery of Time was the central feature highlighted in the competition brief.

100% agree with you about how terrible it would be to change it up now, but unfortunately, I think the assumption might be right based on what the new govt. has come out and said.

A solution to this impasse would be to include a vastly expanded Aboriginal Art and Culture Gallery as the centrepiece of a redeveloped SA Museum (a vision for a glass pavilion covering the grassy forecourt was released by the SA Museum director a couple of years ago).

This would then allow Adelaide Contemporary to progress on its current brief for contemporary art (possibly some contemporary Aboriginal art could be shared and rotated with the SA Museum).

[Nathan]

I'm not quite down with the assumption of a "new brief". I think it would be an appalling act to take the years of work and money spent by the art gallery to get this far, and just hand it all over to the museum. Marshall should be reminded that the Adelaide Contemporary is an initiative of AGSA, not a project of the former Labor government.

And Aboriginal art was always a focus of the Adelaide Contemporary. The Gallery of Time was the central feature highlighted in the competition brief.

100% agree with you about how terrible it would be to change it up now, but unfortunately, I think the assumption might be right based on what the new govt. has come out and said.

A solution to this impasse would be to include a vastly expanded Aboriginal Art and Culture Gallery as the centrepiece of a redeveloped SA Museum (a vision for a glass pavilion covering the grassy forecourt was released by the SA Museum director a couple of years ago).

This would then allow Adelaide Contemporary to progress on its current brief for contemporary art (possibly some contemporary Aboriginal art could be shared and rotated with the SA Museum).

I agree on that. The other option would be to locate the aboriginal art and culture gallery elsewhere within the oRAH precinct, but proceeding with the museums original expansion plans would fit (they still have displays about it in the foyer). There was an a option piece after the election from a collector who has donated to both the gallery and the museum, who suggested that whilst the museum's aboriginal collection is indeed extensive such that currently only a small portion is on on show, it was wrong to assume that it was worth showing the entire collection (how many more shields do we need to see?). He also advocated that any expansion of the museum's display should be done on site due to issues with moving the collection, as well as separating it contextually from the rest of the museum's collections (particularly the Pacific Cultures collection).

[Patrick_27]

Whatever happens, there is definitely money needing to be spent in these areas. Both the Museum and Art Gallery are at capacity and completely uncompetitive with interstate facilities furthermore, the Museum is looking very tired. The new government should be looking to honour the $100m proposal put forward by SA Museum to build on the forecourt (which as mentioned could include a new and expanded Aboriginal gallery (people often forget that Adelaide is already home to the world's largest Australian indigenous artefact collection both on display and behind closed doors) and then move forward with the Adelaide Contemporary at it's $250m? costing (which also could include sections dedicated to Aboriginal art).

[ml69]

Whatever happens, there is definitely money needing to be spent in these areas. Both the Museum and Art Gallery are at capacity and completely uncompetitive with interstate facilities furthermore, the Museum is looking very tired. The new government should be looking to honour the $100m proposal put forward by SA Museum to build on the forecourt (which as mentioned could include a new and expanded Aboriginal gallery (people often forget that Adelaide is already home to the world's largest Australian indigenous artefact collection both on display and behind closed doors) and then move forward with the Adelaide Contemporary at it's $250m? costing (which also could include sections dedicated to Aboriginal art).

This is definitely the way forward.

SA Museum are happy because they become the home of the world's most pre-eminent Aboriginal Art and Culture collection in a new state-of-the-art facility.

Art Gallery is happy because they proceed with Adelaide Contemporary with perhaps only minor changes to the original brief.

As for my preferred design ... hmmm it's a toss up between the BIG/JPE proposal and the Adjaye/BVN scheme.

I like the BIG/JPE design because it is the most unique externally and would attract visitors just to walk over the roofs and ramps. It is a beautiful resolution of the junction between city and garden. But internally, I believe the design is compromised by the external "idea" and is a bit disappointing.

My initial reaction to the Adjaye/BVN design was "yuck", but it's growing on me. It will certainly be a controversial design, but it makes a big, bold (iconic) statement on North Terrace and I think the spaces under the roof canopy (externally) and the internal spaces are majestic and beautiful.

[Nathan]

Tonights forum is completely booked out, with a waitlist out past 100. Those without tickets may be admitted if there are seats free after the event has started.

Also, the models for each of the entries (except for the BIG/JPE entry - I assume it's still on its way) are on display at the Art Gallery. They're on one of the lower floor galleries near the asian art collection (easiest entry is probably from where the cafe is, the entry way in between information counter and cloak room).

[floplo]

Not sure if anyone else attended the presentations, but my one-liner impressions

Adjaye/BVN: the building is making the statement
Renfro/Woods Bagot: we are building a cultural center
Hassel So-Il: we are erecting an art festival tent
Bjarke Ingels JPE: it's a sunday afternoon garden art pavilion

this might reflect the way the whole competition was set up (or just my ignorance about the brief and what architects do), but the different groups didn't propose a different architecture for the same underlying project, each of them was pushing a substantially different interpretation what the core idea of the Adelaide Contemporary is supposed to be.

[Nathan]

Not sure if anyone else attended the presentations, but my one-liner impressions

Adjaye/BVN: the building is making the statement
Renfro/Woods Bagot: we are building a cultural center
Hassel So-Il: we are erecting an art festival tent
Bjarke Ingels JPE: it's a sunday afternoon garden art pavilion

this might reflect the way the whole competition was set up (or just my ignorance about the brief and what architects do), but the different groups didn't propose a different architecture for the same underlying project, each of them was pushing a substantially different interpretation what the core idea of the Adelaide Contemporary is supposed to be.

Still there

A creative brief is not necessarily 100% prescriptive, instead is open to degrees of interpretation. There is, and should be, room for the architects to analyse beyond the brief and feed that back into opinionated direction which may push the brief beyond or outside what the client may have initially asked for.

[floplo]

Still there

A creative brief is not necessarily 100% prescriptive, instead is open to degrees of interpretation. There is, and should be, room for the architects to analyse beyond the brief and feed that back into opinionated direction which may push the brief beyond or outside what the client may have initially asked for.

How many did stay for the second half ?

I do get that briefs are not fully prescriptive, but I just was astonished that they seemed to put the 'contemporary' part of the project very central (and that is obviously very open to interpretation), while the gallery of time / aboriginal aspect seemed to be secondary

[Nathan]

Still there

A creative brief is not necessarily 100% prescriptive, instead is open to degrees of interpretation. There is, and should be, room for the architects to analyse beyond the brief and feed that back into opinionated direction which may push the brief beyond or outside what the client may have initially asked for.

How many did stay for the second half ?

I do get that briefs are not fully prescriptive, but I just was astonished that they seemed to put the 'contemporary' part of the project very central (and that is obviously very open to interpretation), while the gallery of time / aboriginal aspect seemed to be secondary

About half I would say.

I thought the Adjaye presentation showed quite a bit with its references to aboriginal culture and the land. Plenty talked about the positioning of the Gallery of Time within the building and how it relates to its interface with the public space and the public itself.

There was also more talk around the aboriginal concept of time and how that relates to the idea of ‘contemporary’ in the panel discussion.

Aside from that, there was a lot about how this project is ‘restoring’ the interface between the city and the gardens. From a practical sense, the hospital will leave a significant basement. The site of the building is no accident as all the proposals make use of that existing basement.

[floplo]

Agree on the Adjaye presentation, maybe it was the contrast between that proposal showing what I was expecting and the others deviating more from that expectations.

The contrast might also be because the Adjaye presenter wasn't really delivering a sales pitch and more of an info talk, while Woods bagot / Hassel definitely delivered theirs with a more emotional / inspirational appeal.

After watching the presentations I probably would prefer the Adjaye proposal because the building itself has a certain appeal to me, brings in the aboriginal aspects more and the building itself is dominant and makes an impression . Woods bagot as well as Hassel probably are better choices if the focus were on 'activation' and to create a civic activity space. I felt somewhat underwhelmed by BIG/JPE, it just seemed to blend too much into the parklands without enough payoff for that. Nice but bland.

I am curious, I had met some members of one of the Universities' architecture school earlier today, and they were not exactly enthusiastic about it (didn't get to talk more with them why exactly), so how were the audience reactions / questions /comments during the panel discussions ?

[Llessur2002]

Interesting development: http://abc.net.au/news/2018-05-25/old-r ... fmredir=sm

Not sure if this is just a delay tactic to avoid having to build any form of gallery at all, or the Libs trying to do and about-turn on their indigenous gallery plans in favour of the already advanced contemporary gallery plan.

Either way, it seems good news that the demand for space at the innovation precinct is apparently very high