Melbourne is hoping to secure its place as Australia’s cultural capital with the country’s largest gallery of contemporary art.
The government of the State of Victoria said the gallery would be built beside the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) as part of a new arts precinct.
The gallery will be known as NGV Contemporary, and will make the city a global leader in the arts world, according to Martin Foley, Victoria’s minister for the creative industries.
"The NGV is one of the world’s top 20 contemporary art museums and now we’ll have an opportunity to have a dedicated contemporary art facility," he said.
He added that the project would definitely go ahead because the state government had already spent US$115m to acquire the site, a former Carlton & United Brewery.
The redevelopment will also provide about 18,000 sq m of public space, a centre for smaller arts organisations, a new pedestrian corridor with bars and restaurants, cycle tracks and more green space on Southbank Boulevard.
All being well, the project is due to be completed in 2024.
DeciBel’s rendering of the Magic tower. The twist is to reduce wind shear
Meanwhile, the city has also been earmarked for a New York-style super-skinny skyscraper that would be 330m tall, making it the highest building in Australia, and 2m higher than Auckland’s forthcoming Sky Tower.
The site of the proposed Magic tower is owned by the Royal Society of Victoria (RSV), which solicited proposals for what to do with the land after the Bureau of Meteorology moved a weather observation station from the block three years ago.
The RSV received more than 30 applications, from which it chose a proposal to build a tower filled by luxury flats put forward by DeciBel Architecture.
The plan has yet to receive planning approval; if it goes ahead it could be completed by about 2022.
Image: The government of Victoria’s rendering of the "NGV Contemporary"
Further reading
Comments
Comments are closed.
I dont see the point is it just another ego trip or what