Burnie, Tasmania, Australia

 “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,” states Steve Kons, Mayor, Burnie City Council.

Designed by Terroir to house both the city’s regional art gallery and Museum in Burnie, the new museum is sited along the Bass Highway will showcase the region’s natural environment, its history and heritage, as well as the communities shaping the city’s future.

The project was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

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.

Terroir’s design is inspired by the rugged, sculpted coastline of Tasmania’s North West region, a four-story volume with gallery space, back of house and storage. 

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.

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

Architects: TERROIR
Client: Burnie City Council
Renders: dpi-studio.dk, Sonny Helmberg, Terroir