Building of the year – art gallery in Auckland
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Auckland Art Gallery by Australian studio Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp has been awarded World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Singapore.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tаmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand, and has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand. It frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.
The gallery was established in 1888 as the first permanent art gallery in New Zealand. In 2008, Council decided to go ahead with the extension, which finished in 2011 for a total of NZ$113 million.
The expansion design by Australian architecture firm FJMT in partnership with Auckland based Archimedia, increased exhibition space by 50%, for up to 900 artworks, and provided dedicated education, child and family spaces. As part of the upgrade, existing parts of the structure were renovated and restored to its 1916 state - amongst other things ensuring that the 17 different floor levels in the building were reduced to just 6. The new building received 13 architectural and 4 design related awards.
Roofs over the forecourt, atrium and gallery spaces appear to float at different heights, patterned with wood panels on their undersides. These canopies are designed to mirror the trees at nearby Albert Park, which can be seen through the large transparent walls of the exhibition spaces.
When the project won the Culture category at the awards yesterday, the WAF judges said: “This is a highly sensitive addition to Auckland Art Gallery which reanimates and reinvigorates the existing building. It responds brilliantly to context and site and gives the gallery a new architectural identity.”
“Our inspiration was the beautiful natural landscape,” FJMT design director Richard Francis-Jones said after the announcement. “We saw the building as embedded in place. We wanted to use natural local materials, especially the beautiful kauri trees. But because these are protected, we could only use fallen trees or recycled wood. ‘The building is all about New Zealand, and it has the work of great Maori artists embedded in it.”
Frances-Jones Morehen Thorp