Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning studio SANAA has extended the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a series of pavilions that step down towards Sydney Harbour.
Set to open to the public on 3 December, Sydney Modern is designed to contrast with the existing art gallery's 19th-century neo-classical architecture, with the two buildings connected by a public art garden.
SANAA's Sydney Modern opens to the public this weekend
SANAA aimed for the extension, which is set in a prominent location on a hillside overlooking Sydney Harbour's Woolloomooloo Bay, to act in harmony with the scenic location.
"We aim to design an art museum building that is harmonious with its surroundings, one that breathes with the city, the park and the harbour," said SANAA principals Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. The gallery overlooks Sydney Harbour
The building contains 7,000 square metres of gallery space ? almost doubling the exhibition area for the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
It comprises a cluster of interlocked, rectilinear pavilions grouped around a large, glass-walled atrium at the building's centre that reaches over eleven metres at the highest point and has views across the harbour.
The extension comprises a series of rectangular pavilions
On the lower levels, rammed earth was used to construct the walls using materials sourced from across the Australian state of New South Wales.
Meanwhile, on the upper levels, glass walls were placed to create views across the Royal Botan...