ARCH1201 2009 MB

INTRODUCTION/NARRATIVE

My art gallery is built on Site 3 - the main intersection of King Street, Wilson Street and Eliza Street in Newtown.

My client is based on the SOHO Galleries director, Nigel Messenger http://www.sohogalleries.net/. My client wants to promote Australian contemporary art to the community, and wishes his gallery/workshop to be a place of creative work for artists, a place to visit for the artlover or everyday person, a place to promote and sell art for business's sake, and a place for artists and artlovers to meet to create new ongoing work.

My client owns the gallery, and will live in a small apartment on top of his gallery overlooking the heart of Newtown. He wants a workshop and storage space for budding contemporary artists to create their art in, and an office for customers to buy the artwork. There will be one large display gallery, one smaller gallery, and an outdoor sculpture garden at the back.

The art displayed inside will be contemporary paintings, sculptures and photography made by young and upcoming artists use his art gallery workshop regularly, as well as from other local artists nearby. Most of the artworks displayed will be for sale.

DRAWINGS

Plans

Section

Small Gallery room - Plan and Section (Poche)

Note: In the small gallery plan, there is a slim skylight which can only be experienced from the ground floor workshop. Hence, in the sectional drawing, I included both the small gallery and the ground floor workshop beneath it.

MODEL

Facade

My client wants an art gallery that is open and welcoming to the public. Hence the facade has plenty of wall space to display artwork to the public, and windows to look out onto the streets of Newtown. The entrance has a triangular rest area, where people can pause and admire the artwork from outside the building before deciding to go in. There will also be a mural (similar in style to the Martin Luther King mural on the next building to the right) and sculpture in this triangular restway to attract people's attention.

Interior

This is the view once you have entered the main gallery. It shows the intended sequence. The stairs to the left take you through a view of the outdoor courtyard, then to the smaller and darker gallery to the right. After you circulate through, you will be back at the facade, overlooking the busy streets of Newtown from the first floor. This serves as a reminder that this is where this artwork came from. Then you go back down the steps (on the right side of this photo), which lead you to the outdoor scultural courtyard at the back.

Sections

Photography and small sculptures will go in the smaller, but darker two-storey gallery on the first floor. The large paintings will hang from the walls of the main ground floor gallery, and sculptures will be placed alongside the walls of the staircases and stair landings. The main ground floor gallery is illuminated by the open skylight.

Courtyard

The sculpture courtyard will have a large sculptural centrepiece in the middle platform, as well as other smaller sculptures on the garden terrace steps leading up the side wall.

Note: You can enter the sculpture courtyard from the first floor and down the terrace steps, if you wish.

The Astronomer (1668) by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.

The figure in the painting is studying the globe and book on his desk. His desk is situated in front of the window, which creates a dimly lit scene.

I designed a private observatory/study for this astronomer with the same kind of ambience portrayed in the painting by using minimal window openings, and one main skylight/observatory room to illuminate the interior of the building.

NARRATIVE

A private obervatory and place of solitude for an old man still searching for something he is missing. He believes his answer is in the stars above, or the distant horizons.

DRAWINGS

This section shows the dimly lit study on the ground floor, the first floor with an observatory looking up and a horizontal lookout, and lastly a rooftop deck that has an unrestricted view of the skies and horizons.