North West Museum and Art Gallery

The North West Museum and Art Gallery (NWMAG) is designed as a portal to the region’s extraordinary natural environment, its deep history and heritage and the resourceful communities – a portal that invites the arts into the city and region and the city and region into the arts. It provides new opportunities for hybrids of cultural and social life, beyond the specifics of its constituent parts of art gallery and museum.

NWMAG will provide 1,400m2 of gallery and exhibition space and 1,200 m2 of back of house/utility spaces over four levels and includes a refurbishment of the town’s civic plaza. As such it will deliver a much-needed community and regional asset that will generate jobs, growth and value in the economic recovery phase of COVID-19.

TYPE Public
LOCATION Burnie | AU
YEAR 2020-

“The North West Museum and Art Gallery (NWMAG) will be the premier destination in Tasmania’s extraordinary North West to be inspired and delighted, to think, study and research, to connect and create through an enriching programme of culture and creativity"

Steve KonsMayor, Burnie City Council

APPROACH

Site Location

Geology

Regional Circulation

Base Massing

Extended Massing

Enclosure

Resolution

This project is organised as a journey across the site. On arrival, the ground plane is configured as an urban room that is as much a part of the landscape and city as it is a foyer and entry. Walking from this room in and around the building, visitors will encounter exhibitions and programs as might be expected, but interspersed with a series of encounters with art, the city and broader landscape. These encounters can be described as a series of “keyhole” moments where space, place, art, cultural history and landscape come together in a precisely choregraphed way.

North West Museum and Art Gallery

APPROACH

GALLERY

DRAWINGS

MODELS