Australian National Portrait Gallery Tops ACT Architecture Awards

The National Portrait Gallery by Johnson Pilton Walker was awarded the 2009 Canberra Medallion and the Romaldo Giurgola Award for Public Architecture. In a third win, it also received the coveted Light in Architecture Prize.

In presenting the two awards, Jury Chair Bronwen Jones said the building was sited in arguably one of the most significant public places in Australia, represented the first new public building in the precinct for 20 years, and was one of only a handful of national portrait galleries in the world. It was an outstanding work of architectural excellence and a contemporary public building worthy of Australia’s national capital.

Ms Jones said: “The building, with great strength and modesty, successfully takes its place alongside the High Court and opposite the National Gallery of Australia. It presents an elegant and beautifully scaled frontage to King Edward Terrace, with facades of equal force and consistency to all other parts of this complex and sensitive site. The pavilion plan form, described by the architects as ‘five fingers of space’, reflects the Walter Burley Griffin concept for this area of a lateral and terraced geometry.

“The building is at once substantial in its overall presence and personal, sometimes even intimate, in the way it engages with the visitor or the passer-by. Just as for the portraits it displays, the architecture noticeably draws from human scale and proportion in all of its parts. As a public building the gallery is markedly accessible and focused on the visitor experience. At no time does the architecture lose sight of its primary purpose - to display pictures of people for other people to view.”

The National Portrait Gallery is now in the running for the national award for public architecture, to be announced in October.

From a strong field of commercial contenders, the inaugural recipient of the John’s Andrews Award for Commercial Architecture was presented to the NSW Government Service Center at Queanbeyan by Bates Smart, designed to accommodate a number of government departments in a ‘one stop shop’. The jury said the building represents “a positive contribution to the Queanbeyan streetscape and has achieved the aim of creating a model for a new civic building type that may enhance regional centers throughout the state”.

The Sir John Overall Award for Urban Design was presented to the Brindabella Business Park Stage 1 by Daryl Jackson Alastair Swayn, with the jury noting its success in overcoming “many of the problems associated with conventional business parks – their mono-culture, lack of amenities and repetitive standardized architecture, as well as their poor environmental performance”.

This year’s major residential award, the Malcolm Moir and Heather Sutherland Award for Residential Architecture – Houses, was presented to the Forrest Residence by Collins Caddaye Architects. The jury said: “Hidden behind a modest single story bungalow typical of the old inner south Canberra suburban streetscapes is an exquisite new family home. Far from being simply a remnant façade, the old house is skillfully integrated and retains a polite address to the street. Internally the rooms of the old house create an active interface between the formal and informal, the public and the private and the work and play parts of the house.”

In a double win for a small budget, small footprint sensitive project in the Namadgi National Park, the Mt Franklin Visitor Shelter by the University of South Australia, was honored with the Small Project Architecture Award and the Colorbond Award for Steel Architecture. The building replaces the much-loved Mt Franklin Chalet destroyed in the 2003 bush fires, but “rather than replicate the chalet accommodation, the building is a new take on visitor facilities in remote areas”. The jury said the building offered “a refuge and a stopping and meeting place” and had “imbued the site with cultural value that aligns with its former history”. The building was designed, detailed, pre-fabricated, moved and erected by University of South Australia design students.

In a strong year for Interior Architecture, four awards and commendations were presented, with the W. Hayward Morris Award for Interior Architecture going to the Hedley Bull Center by Lyons, which “expertly fulfills its brief to generate a strong sense of interrelationship to unify the three previously-separated departments that are to be housed together in this new building”.

The NewActon East Penthouse by Fender Katsalidis in collaboration with Nectar Efkarpidis & Pamille Berg Consulting with artists ‘Byrd’ Dan Maginnity and Robin Blau received the Art in Architecture Award. The jury said: Commissioned works of art are integral with the fitting out of the interior of this apartment in NewActon East. A graffiti mural by “Byrd” Dan Maginnity extends the full length of the internal wall and sculptural shrouds of rusting steel, stainless steel and optic fibre by sculptor Robin Blau entwine the fire place and shower and extend across wall and ceiling. The significance of these commissions goes beyond the unquestioned quality and integrity of the works and their degree of integration with the architecture. They are the contemporary expression of the long tradition of the use of art in the domestic setting to give personal meaning and significance.”

In other awards, the CSIRO FC Pye Laboratory, completed in 1966 by Ancher Mortlock Murray & Wolley, was honored with this year’s 25 Year Award for Enduring Architecture.

The 2009 President’s Medal was presented to Sheila Hughes, in recognition of her contribution to architecture and the public interest.

The ACT this year announced the introduction of Named Architecture Awards, presented to the best project in each of the seven Named Awards categories as an important acknowledgment of excellence.

All Award winners are now in the running for National Architecture Awards, to be announced in Melbourne at the end of October.

ACT Awards Jury: Bronwen Jones (Chair), Collins Caddaye Architects; Erik Innes, Munns Sly Architects; Robert Thorne, HBO + EMTB; Annabelle Pegrum, University of Canberra; Peter Tonkin (Interstate Juror), Tonkin Zulaikha Greer; Nectar Efkarpidis (Lay Juror), Molonglo Group.