Newtown Art Gallery

The chosen site is a connection Camperdown Memorial Park and the busy King Street. The Art Gallery is a continuous passage that takes patrons on a journey between the Memorial Park and the main street, while inviting them to enjoy the displays of contemporary paintings, installations, and sculptures. The north-oriented outdoor space provides a sunny lookout towards the park and a Sculpture Park behind the gallery.

artists for Newtown Art Gallery

The Art Gallery is a diverse platform for contemporary art, whether they are by established contemporary artists, up-and-coming street artists, arts discovered by netizens, students exhibitions, or others.

Contemporary Aboriginal art by The King Sisters

Installation paper art by Su Blackwell

Installation / street art by Know Hope

inspirations for Art Gallery

Steven Holl's expansion of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has a linear plan with ramps and escalators which separates gallery spaces and circulation very well. The natural lighting works extremely well and I find the architectural play with double / triple height spaces very interesting.

Room and Narrative final submission

Painting
"Summer In The City" - Edward Hopper (1949)
The painting shows two characters who are isolated from each other despite their close proximity. With the woman in a defensive pose and the man hiding his face, they look extremely uncomfortable and there is a yearning to be alone. The gloom and darkness of the mood is in contrast with the bright, harsh evening light that pollutes the bare and empty room.

Narrative
A contemplative space inside an isolated tower for a quiet and extremely introverted hermit

Site
A remote mountainous area, the Subalpine Zone of the Swiss Alps. The building faces the south so as to capture the light from the southern sun, and has its back against the harsh northern winds. One approaches the building from the south as one climbs up the mountain.

Drawings




Model

Process for Room and Narrative

The Painting
-empty room to the point of being non-functional, the only furniture is bed
-harsh and intruding evening light expose bareness, emptiness, nakedness
-isolated and lonely,extreme discomfort of being with each other, (desire to get away from each other?)
-high-rise apartment setting -> high density urban living, can be suffocating

1940s mindset: post-war trauma and weariness, period of transition and uncertainties

Narrative
-social misfit who desires to be alone and detached from everyday life
-he wishes to be at peace and ease, the space should evoke serenity and a sense of calm
-the space should be ideal for resting, relaxing, being in harmony with oneself and maybe relating to the stillness of nature

Rooms
-situated on a secluded, sloping site
-private space for one person
-cave / bunker
-as inspired by Jørn Utzon's Can Feliz, a space that has a strong back against the site and is protective like a cave
-materiality : primarily concrete (precast or block) - strong and protective yet expressive, suitable to create mood and stillness
-contrast between (light-flooded) ground / upper ground space and darker, moodier underground space
-sloped walls-> in line with sloping site, create gap let in light
-high ceiling, roomy underground space to enhance the feeling of being alone, with light coming from up above

Picture: view from the bottom of the well (Source: Flickr)

Early -> More Developed Sketches



After consultation, I decided to change my design in order to fit the narrative better.

Inspirations for Room and Narrative

Steven Holl - [left] Danish Arts Centre, [right] Chapel of St Ignatius
sculptural quality of the space and great ambience from high light source

Tadao Ando - Church of Light
I think that the use of concrete is really evocative, with light coming in through slits like an intruder

Box House - Rintalla Eggertsson
intimate execution of the cave / bunker concept; proof that a cave does not have to be awfully dark. In fact light is the one factor that create depth and shadows.

The Painting

"Summer In The City" - Edward Hopper (1949)

The artist in a glimpse
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. He was a pictorial poet with an immense fascination in urban architecture who recorded the starkness and vastness of America. He painted hotels, motels, trains and highways, and also liked to paint the public and semi-public places where people gathered: restaurants,theatres, cinemas and offices. But even in these paintings he stressed the theme of loneliness.

Always reluctant to discuss himself and his art, Hopper simply summed up his art by stating, “The whole answer is there on the canvas.” Hopper was stoic and fatalistic — a quiet introverted man with a gentle sense of humor and a frank manner. Conservative in politics and social matters, he accepted things as they were and displayed a lack of idealism.

He practiced art during the first half of the 20^th century where the world went through rapid changes and lots of calamity such as both World Wars, Holocaust, and the Great Depression despite showing early promise of wealth and prosperity during The Jazz Age.

The 1940s in a glimpse
Spanning from 1939 – 1945, World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrination, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons such as the atomic bomb. The 1940s were seen as a transition period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s, which also leads the period to be divided in two halves:

The first half of the decade was dominated by World War II, the widest and most destructive armed conflict in human history. So consequential was this event and its brutal aftermath that it laid the foundation for other major world events and trends for decades to follow. This war was also the first modern civilian war. The second half marked the beginning of the East-West conflict and the Cold War, together with major social upheaval caused by the destruction of the war, the large number of refugees, and soldiers returning home and demanding government recognition for their sacrifice, especially in colonies of European countries, many of which gained independence.

(quoted from: http://www.artandpopularculture.com/1940s)

My analysis
When I first analysed this painting, I focused on what the two characters might felt and narrowed them down to guilt, regret, and the harsh exposure of the light in the scene. This brought me to a narrative about someone who struggles with addiction; the guilt and regret that it caused him / her but at the same time the self-professed inability to change things for the better. Naturally, things led to to Trainspotting. However, at this stage my direction started to deviate further away from Summer In The City.

I slept on this, and on a second analysis, I simply focus on the isolated state two characters in the painting despite their close proximity, and the bare emptiness that fills both the space and the ambience. And my narrative shifted to a person who simply can't connect with other human beings, who feels isolated and immensely lonely.

Current Narrative
A retreat for a social misfit who gives up on human interaction and wishes to be alone.