Stellar Shortlist Announced for Adelaide Art Gallery Architect

A star-studded shortlist has been announced for the design of Australia's newest contemporary art museum.

Conceived as a sister museum to the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Adelaide Contemporary will include an art gallery, public sculpture park and meeting place for the city on a significant site near the University of Adelaide and the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

The competition brief required proposals that "integrate art, education, nature and people" and create an architectural landmark on the North Terrace boulevard adjacent to the historic Botanic Gardens.

Each of the six finalist teams receive $90,000 to create their designs for the gallery, which is proposed for the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site.

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The first stage of the competition attracted 107 teams made up of 525 individual firms from five continents. The jury then got this down to these six teams on the shortlist:

• Adjaye Associates (London, UK) and BVN (Sydney, Australia)

• Bjarke Ingels Group (Copenhagen, Denmark) and JPE Design Studio (Adelaide, Australia)

• David Chipperfield Architects (London, UK) and SJB Architects (Sydney, Australia)

• Diller Scofidio + Renfro (New York, USA) and Woods Bagot (Adelaide, Australia)

• HASSELL (Melbourne, Australia) and SO-IL (New York, USA)

• Khai Liew (Adelaide, Australia), Office of Ryue Nishizawa (Tokyo, Japan) and Durbach Block Jaggers (Sydney, Australia)

Each of the overseas finalists has teamed with an Australian company including four with a significant presence in Adelaide.

The designs from the six finalists will be revealed to the public as part of an exhibition in April before the jury decides the winner which is expected to be announced in June. The jury is chaired by architect Michael Lynch.

“This is an extraordinarily rich list of diverse creative partnerships of architects looking to complement their talents by working with both peers and smaller talented practices,” Art Gallery of South Australia director Nick Mitzevich said.

“The six teams all showed a strong connection with Adelaide – and understood that our aim is not to create an off-the-peg architectural icon but a piece of Adelaide, an entity that will be sustainable and polymathic in the way it enhances the social, cultural and architectural fabric of the city.”

The museum is expected to cost approximately $250 million.