Phoenix Gallery
city°
Phoenix Gallery is a labyrinthine gallery and timber-lined performance space in a building dedicated to art, performance, nature and culture. Located in Chippendale, the project was commissioned by Judith Neilson, with architecture by John Wardle Architects & Durbach Block Jaggers.
Size: 700m2
Budget: $32,000,000
Scope: Concept Design, Development Application, Detail Documentation, Construction
The Phoenix Gallery has been recognised with the following awards;
2021 AILA NSW Award of Excellence for Gardens
2020 NSW Architecture Medallion, AIA New South Wales
2020 Sir Arthur G. Stephenson Award for Commercial Architecture, AIA New South Wales
2020 John Verge Award for Interior Architecture, AIA New South Wales
2020 Emil Sodersten Award for Interiors, AIA National
2020 Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture, AIA National
2020 Dezeen Cultural Building of the Year
View from Chippendale Green of the bespoke brick facade
1. Interplay of material and texture (above left)
2. Central courtyard connects the east and west wings (below left)
3. Concept render (right)
Slipping through the looking glass
Connection to art and nature
An elliptical basement incorporates a skylight to the garden above
‘an elliptical room with a circular skylight, where sculpture and concrete dance with the sun’
- Laura Harding (ArchitectureAU)
1. Seating within the belly of the bird (above)
2. A setting that art works can engage with (above right)
3. Zheng Guogu’s ‘Spiritual Tour of a Pure Garden, Sexy But Not Lascivious’ (below right)
Artist in residence apartment and garden terrace
Pachycereus pringlei
Euphorbia ingens marmorata
Agave Sharkskin
‘a whimsical foreground garden of cacti and succulents; fleetingly, they seem to fit’
- Laura Harding (Architecture AU)
Jury Citation - 2021 AILA NSW Awards
The privately commissioned Phoenix Gallery provides an interwoven building and landscape dedicated to art, performance, nature and culture. This incredible piece of work demonstrated confidence of design that successfully fused elements of façade and courtyard to mutually deliver a dynamic art space and an intimate respite for one or few.
The work displays a maturity by combining drama through form, texture and lighting choices, while restraint of the material/species palette engenders a calm and tranquil elegance. A beautiful example of where landscape and architecture are seamlessly interlaced, where it is impossible to identify where one ends and the other begins.
Jury Citation - 2020 National AIA Awards: The Harry Seidler Award for Commercial Architecture
Phoenix Central Park, the vision of prominent philanthropist Judith Neilson, is a project that has risen from the ashes of a vacant warehouse site in Chippendale, a gritty inner-Sydney neighbourhood surrounded by three of Sydney’s major universities. This project adds yet another gem to the revitalization of the precinct. Architecture and interior are forged as one under a superb collaboration between Durbach Block Jaggers and John Wardle Architects. The project comprises two intertwined and complementary buildings, each with its own character. Similarly, the program mixes and blurs visual and performing arts for a totally immersive experience.
The John Wardle Architects–designed art gallery to the east has a most intriguing and rich carcanet of spaces with intimate, singularly focussed alcoves and pockets. A field of skylights and an oculus window to the street are reference points that orient the observer. The western building, designed by Durbach Block Jaggers, is an outstanding, highly experiential in-the-round performance space. While small in plan, it is a soaring, cavernous space, moving and theatrical. The two build-ings, with a singular external skin of bespoke bricks, enfold an entry court containing a central garden designed by 360 Degrees.
Phoenix not only provides a framework to push the boundaries of art expression, it supports artists-in-residence, public engagement and education. This unparalleled project of gallery, garden and performance has socially, economically and culturally rejuvenated the southern end of the city of Sydney and beyond.
