Georgia Honan

Southbank has a lively arts scene that has been engrained into the city fabric over generations of Melburnians. NGV Contemporary is an architectural gesture that interweaves itself with its surrounding arts programs, bringing people together through built form, contemporary art, landscape, and social interaction, contextually framed by a multi-cultural Australian city.

NGV Contemporary is a multi-sensory sequence of spaces that wraps its arms around visitors from all walks of life and creates opportunity for a woven sense of culture. Internal spaces are a reflection of interlaced program, blending together different art collections to inspire a new sense of culture that is inclusive and enriched by unique experience.

As each person’s experience with culture is unique, numerous gallery junctions provide visitors with endless opportunity to explore artworks with moments for social interaction along the way through lawless circulation.

The gallery draws on Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s concept of phenomenal transparency by dividing floor plates and shifting them up half a level to visually interweave gallery spaces and create a sense of continuous connection to all parts of the gallery.

The two distinctive sites are bound together by a promenade forming a connection between Southbank Boulevard, City Road and St Kilda Road.