Opening of new Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects
25/01/2022.
[Illaroo - New South Wales] Australia
metalocus, JAVIER ARIAS
metalocus, JAVIER ARIAS
A dramatic 160m-long bridge designed by the architect Kerstin Thompson, the Australia's huge new Bushland Art Museum, is opening this month ( to the public on saturday 29th january 2022, with an official ceremony and festival of events being held on saturday 5th march 2022), on the NSW South Coast, almost 200km south of Sydney.
Bundanon, the sprawling rural estate gifted to Australia by the artist Arthur Boyd, will reopen following a A$33m (€21m) redevelopment including a bushfire-resistant subterranean gallery, (prawling over 500 square metre), alongside a 160 metre-long bridge, that doubles as a learning centre. The Bundanon Art Museum will showcase contemporary and First Nations art year-round.
Bundanon, the sprawling rural estate gifted to Australia by the artist Arthur Boyd, will reopen following a A$33m (€21m) redevelopment including a bushfire-resistant subterranean gallery, (prawling over 500 square metre), alongside a 160 metre-long bridge, that doubles as a learning centre. The Bundanon Art Museum will showcase contemporary and First Nations art year-round.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Bundanon Art Museum by Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA). Photograph by Zan Wimberley.
Kerstin Thompson designed the museum as bridge (featuring windows the size of Arthur Boyd's favoured canvases) spans an existing gully and allows flood waters to naturally flow across the site.
Solar power, passive temperature control, rain water harvesting, black water treatment, as well as the use of local materials all contribute towards the net-zero ambition for the project.
The Bundanon collection holds 1,448 works by Arthur Boyd as well Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Joy Hester and Charles Blackman. The Riversdale property includes a historic homestead complex as well as the Boyd Education Centre, designed by Glenn Murcutt, Wendy Lewin and Reg Lark in 1999. The new additions share an expansive public plaza, which is located near the existing nineteenth century buildings.
Solar power, passive temperature control, rain water harvesting, black water treatment, as well as the use of local materials all contribute towards the net-zero ambition for the project.
The Bundanon collection holds 1,448 works by Arthur Boyd as well Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Joy Hester and Charles Blackman. The Riversdale property includes a historic homestead complex as well as the Boyd Education Centre, designed by Glenn Murcutt, Wendy Lewin and Reg Lark in 1999. The new additions share an expansive public plaza, which is located near the existing nineteenth century buildings.
Project description by Kerstin Thompson Architects
The Bundanon Art Museum & The Bridge for Creative Learning for the Bundanon Trust is situated on the 1100-hectare property gifted to the Australian people by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd in 1993. It includes a world-class creative learning centre for school students, a contemporary visitor hub, accommodation and a light-filled contemporary art gallery – partially buried into the landscape, housing the Trust’s $37.5 million Arthur Boyd art collection.
Prioritising the existing landscape and its ecology, and responding to the current and future climatic conditions of the site, the design draws on the distinctive Australian native bush land and rural Australia’s flood ‘trestle’ bridges as points of inspiration. The new facilities are housed within a new 140-metre-long by 9-metre-wide structure that at one end abuts the art gallery within the sloping hillside, continuing along to bridge an existing gully.
The new KTA designed facilities are intended to re-establish the historic Boyd cluster of buildings as the heart of the experience. “The design concept both preserves and transforms, is equal parts subtle and dramatic. Renown aspects of the current setting are maintained and their presence enhanced with an array of new and compelling visitor experiences.” It integrates architecture and landscape within the broader continuum of the site’s ecology and environmental systems.
More information
Architects
Collaborators
Wraight Associates, Craig Burton and Atelier 10.
Client
Area
1,100-hectare property.
Museum a 160-metre-long, 9-metre-wide bridge-like structure, and a subterranean art museum and collections store.
Museum a 160-metre-long, 9-metre-wide bridge-like structure, and a subterranean art museum and collections store.
Dates
2018-2021.
Location
170 Riversdale Road, Illaroo, NSW, New South Wales, Australia.
Photography
Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA)
Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA) is a Melbourne-based architecture, landscape and urban design practice with projects in Australia and New Zealand. KTA was established in 1994 by her principal Kerstin Thompson, an Australian architect, born in Melbourne in 1965. She earned her bachelor's degree in architecture at RMIT in 1989. During her undergraduate studies she worked in the Milan-based studio of Matteo Thun (1987), and in the Melbourne-based practice of Robinson Chen (1988–89). From 1990 to 1994 she was a lecturer in architectural design at RMIT and she completed her Master's in Architecture there in 1998.
She is also Professor of Design at the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and Monash University.
The work of the practice encompasses architecture, interiors, landscape and urban design. Their work is extremely varied and ranges in scale and program, from Art and Design Schools for Universities to multi-residential developments, museums, police stations, primary schools and commercial fit-outs.
They have a significant portfolio of individual and multi-residential projects including Napier Street housing: a benchmark for medium density housing included on the Victorian Government’s Good Design files. Other projects include House at Big Hill, House at Hanging Rock, and heritage apartments in the former Channel 9 studios in Bendigo Street, Richmond.
Projects completed for public sector clients include Marysville and Carrum Downs Police Stations, the Visitors Center for the Australian Garden at RBG Cranbourne, Monash University Museum of Art & Ian Potter Sculpture forecourt. Other clients include the MFB, DHS and DEECD.
She is also Professor of Design at the School of Architecture at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and Monash University.
The work of the practice encompasses architecture, interiors, landscape and urban design. Their work is extremely varied and ranges in scale and program, from Art and Design Schools for Universities to multi-residential developments, museums, police stations, primary schools and commercial fit-outs.
They have a significant portfolio of individual and multi-residential projects including Napier Street housing: a benchmark for medium density housing included on the Victorian Government’s Good Design files. Other projects include House at Big Hill, House at Hanging Rock, and heritage apartments in the former Channel 9 studios in Bendigo Street, Richmond.
Projects completed for public sector clients include Marysville and Carrum Downs Police Stations, the Visitors Center for the Australian Garden at RBG Cranbourne, Monash University Museum of Art & Ian Potter Sculpture forecourt. Other clients include the MFB, DHS and DEECD.
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