Contextual Concrete Portraiture

Added : 17 Dec 2010 | Visits : 2752 | Average votes : %

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Johnson Pilton Walker Architects, a Sydney-based architectural firm embraces the creativity and diversity of the Australian character to design National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.

Sited in Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle, the National Portrait Gallery by Johnson Pilton Walker Architects is a low-slung modest structure of concrete and glass that conveys accessibility through its multi-dimensional geometry. The varied levels and exterior geometry was conceptualised to connect to key vistas, levels and alignments around the precinct. It is the first new public building inside the Parliamentary Triangle in nearly 20 years, one of only a handful of purposely built portrait galleries in the world, and possibly Canberra’s most appealing and exciting new public building in recent memory.

The concrete building’s form moulds itself along the principles of the golden section- illustrating homogeneous interactions between the visitor, space, material, light and art. The concrete edifice stands largely on one level—conforming to a human scale, like the portraits it displays and is spread over the parkland as a grouping of five interconnected fingers. The bays as the architects call them are separated by mighty beams of cast-in-place concrete. Imbibing Canberra’s climate and unique natural light and essential character of Australian rural structures, the corrugated roof structure deceives the user with the industrial look like an Australian woolshed. Devoid of pretension, the simplicity of its planning is ideal. With an interplay of levels and cantilevered concrete wings, it is purposed through its two principal elements—walls for display and reflectors to control natural light.