At the annual Master Builders Australia awards ceremony held on Friday 25 June, Manteena was awarded an Excellence in Building Award for The National Gallery of Australia – Skyspace project, in the category – Commercial Building $3M - $6M.
The Skyspace, which is yet to open to the public, is a site specific art project for the National Gallery of Australia by the American artist James Turrell.
It is a unique work of art, its location chosen by the artist to complement and accord with the extended National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden.
View of the Skyspace from the New Southern Entrance and
Indigenous Galleries rooftop, NGA
The Canberra Skyspace is accessible by traversing a long, sloped walkway. Inside the mound, visitors first enter a large room shaped like a square-based pyramid, the interior walls of which are coloured with a red ochre pigment.
At the centre of this room, a huge black granite ‘stupa’ form rises in the middle of a ‘pacific blue’ water feature. Two ramps, set at right angles around the perimeter of the room, converge on a single entrance on the opposite side of the stupa. By following one of the ramps, visitors enter the Skyspace proper on a pathway across the water.
Once inside, visitors find themselves within a simple, white-washed, circular and roofless dome, sparsely furnished with a polished concrete bench around the edge. A bank of lights is located around the base of the dome, discreetly fixed into the wall.
This ‘inner sanctum’ is ascetic, calm and serene, a space which offers the visitor artlessness, simplicity, unhurried perception, and the natural phenomena of the sky.
An entire light-cycle unfolds over a set period but, because of the changing light condition and the variations in the seasons, the experience is always different.
Senior Project Manager, Rod Mitton, said whilst the artist, James Turrell, strives to shift focus from the built environment to enable the visitor to be drawn to another state of mind through the manipulation of light, this condition actually requires extraordinary and complex construction techniques to achieve the artist brief.
“It’s a testament to our team to overcome the difficulty of achieving such refinement of finishes when working with concrete and stone that makes this project truly remarkable,” Rod said.
“Winning the MBA award for the Skyspace is particularly gratifying for the project team as the MBA judges have recognised the complexity of achieving the quality of finishes on what looks to be uncomplicated construction.
“Not only has the quality of workmanship of the Skyspace been recognised by the construction industry but more importantly it has met with the artist’s approval, as James Turrell has articulated his gratitude to the team for interpreting and realising his vision for the installation."
The National Gallery of Australia is yet to advise when it will open the Skyspace to the public due to the other major works - New Entrance and Indigenous Galleries – still currently under construction. It is anticipated that the opening will coincide with the official opening of the new gallery works later in the year.
