From Roy Grounds’ bunker-like design of Arts Centre Melbourne’s Theatres Building and Hamer Hall (as well as the neighbouring National Gallery of Victoria) to Robin Gibson’s iconic brutalist design for Queensland Performing Arts Centre, for many decades arts venues have often turned their backs to the world.
‘Originally, I think such designs were about security – an idea about these sorts of building as containers for precious objects, and certainly the NGV was conceived in that way,’ says Simon Knott (FRAIA), Founding Principal at BKK Architects (whose projects include the recent renewal of ACMI at Federation Square).
