Architect Robin Gibson’s Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is judged to be among Australia’s top 10 most outstanding and distinctive architectural landmarks in Australia.
Gibson’s vision of Brisbane celebrating its river changed the face of the city’s South Bank waterfront, with the Gallery winning the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for the most outstanding public building in Australia when it opened in 1982.
At a time when most Australian galleries were temple-like buildings that upheld the exclusivity of art appreciation, Robin Gibson’s design was truly extraordinary: through the language of Modernism, Gibson’s intention was to democratise art and bring it to the people in a powerful democratic civic gesture.
Gibson was widely applauded for both the functionality of the design and the quality of his aesthetic vision.
The beauty and legibility of the building is a product of Gibson’s relentless application of an organising principle; every space is generated off a 2.5-metre-square grid — an open and modern response to a classical design tradition.
While some are critical of the brutalist, monolithic appearance of the Gallery’s exterior, the internal spaces are both functional and beautifully managed.
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Design © 2020 Robin Gibson. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2020 Jeff Gardner. All Rights Reserved.
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