Shoalhaven, New South Wales, Australia

“The design concept both preserves and transforms, is equal parts subtle and dramatic. Renowned aspects of the current setting are maintained and their presence enhanced with an array of new and compelling visitor experiences,” states Kerstin Thompson.

Designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects together with landscape architects Wraight + Associates and Craig Burton, the new AU $34-million Bundanon New World-Class Art Museum and Bridge for Creative Learning celebrates and complements its surrounding environment on the grounds of a property owned by the late 20th-Century Australian painter Arthur Boyd in Riversdale.

Gifted to the public by Boyd and his wife Yvonne in 1993, and managed by the Bundanon Trust, Riversdale is located in the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales, an area that has been heavily affected by frequent unprecedented bushfires.

The project sits on 1,000 hectares of bush overlooking the Shoalhaven River, two and a half hours south of Sydney.

The new 500-square meter subterranean art museum will present three exhibitions each year as well as housing Bundanon’s existing collection of 4,000 items.

It includes a world-class creative learning centre for school students, a contemporary visitor hub, accommodation and a light-filled contemporary art gallery–partially buried into the landscape, housing the Trust’s $37.5 million Arthur Boyd art collection.

Prioritising the existing landscape and its ecology, and responding to the current and future climatic conditions of the site, the design draws on the distinctive Australian native bushland and rural Australia’s flood ‘trestle’ bridges as points of inspiration.
 
The new facilities are housed within a new 140-meter-long by a 9-meter-wide structure that at one end abuts the art gallery within the sloping hillside, continuing along to bridge an existing gully.

The bridge contains a creative learning center, accommodation for up to 64 guests, and café and dining facilities to support educational programming and artist residencies.

Imagined as a piece of infrastructure the singularity of the bridge’s form serves as a datum to highlight the distinctive undulating topography of Shoalhaven.

The new facility intends to re-establish the historic Boyd cluster of buildings as the heart of the experience.

Recalling the trestle bridges endemic to flood landscapes such as this, the dramatic bridging structure straddles the gully from ridge to ridge, allowing sporadic waters to flow beneath it and for the reinstatement of the wet gully ecology.

The buildings’ unusual designs are an attempt to “foster an appreciation for and understanding of landscape and art,” continues Thompson.

“Both the Art Museum and Bridge respond to current and future climatic conditions, with inspiration drawn from rural Australia’s trestle flood bridges,” she continues.

 The Arrival Hall frames the culturally significant cluster of buildings from the time of the Boyds’ occupation including his studio and also key features of the landscape that inspired him like Arthur’s Hill.

“The design concept both preserves and transforms, is equal parts subtle and dramatic. Renown aspects of the current setting are maintained and their presence enhanced with an array of new and compelling visitor experiences,” states Thompson.

The project integrates architecture and landscape within the broader continuum of the site’s ecology and environmental systems.

The AU $34 million Bundanon development was supported by $22.5 million from the Australian Government and $10.3 million from the NSW Government.

Bundanon CEO Rachel Kent said: “This expansion will widen public access, deepen engagement in creativity and the landscape, and position Bundanon both nationally and internationally”.

The Bundanon art destination in New South Wales, Australia, will open the doors to its new Art Museum and Bridge for Creative Learning from Saturday 29 January 2022.

Project: Bundanon New World-Class Art Museum and Bridge for Creative Learning
Architects: Kerstin Thompson Architects (KTA)
Landscape Architects: Wraight + Associates Ltd. with Craig Burton
Environmental Design Consultants and Engineers: Atelier Ten
Consulting Engineers: Irwin Consulting Ltd.
Client: Bundanon Trust