Design
The Queensland Art Gallery was considered to be a building of its time for it incorporated the best techniques and materials available within the economic limits of the project. It was also the first major building to be built on the south side of the river adjacent to the new Victoria Bridge, which established a benchmark of scale and quality for future buildings.
The Queensland Art Gallery is a 4700 square metre display space broken down with walls and barriers that interchange between the art world and the public. The walls have been placed purposely to create flow and change of course of the viewer’s journey. The primary orientation element of the Gallery’s design is the Watermall that separates the tranquil environment of the exhibition galleries from the proactive environments of the administration, education and library areas. The varying ceilings heights and floor levels, colour and textured surfaces enhance variety and define the sequence of display areas yet it does not assist with clearly identifying the main public entrance for it can be a mystery to find. Here the design fails as the element of greatest importance for a major public building is not adequately addressed. Nonetheless, the entrance foyer efficiently acts as a hub for the public circulation and main access point for arrivals and departures for all visitors where they are able to select which collections they plan to visit. The buildings use of light coloured and maintenance free materials such as cement reflect and adapt to the Mediterranean- like quality of Brisbane’s sub tropical climate.
Read more about this topic: Queensland Art Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Teaching is the perpetual end and office of all things. Teaching, instruction is the main design that shines through the sky and earth.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)