Gallery of Modern Art

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) is a beautifully created building that brings a modern feel to the relatively dated buildings that comprise the cultural precinct of Brisbane.
It's design and materials are sensibly modern, as it suits the function being the host for brilliant range of art, especially the fantastic Asia-Pacific Triennial of Art.
GOMA has lifted both the cultural and architectural design in Brisbane.

We didn’t make the gala opening of GoMA in late 2006. But we did attend a less formal party many months earlier when Brisbane’s cool new gallery was only half-built. On that night a band set up stage inside one of the unfinished galleries, with drinks nearby on a wide, open verandah overlooking the river. In fact we were not on a verandah at all, but on an exposed concrete floor edged by scaffolding to prevent falls. The glass curtain of the façade was yet to be installed. The views to the river and the city were fantastic. They still are.

A few years later, GoMA is a respected art gallery of national importance. We think it is also a place in the city that locals are proud of. Opened first to an eager audience of art lovers it also attracts the curious many. New modern art galleries like GoMA have sometimes been labeled as sort-of-latter-day ‘cathedrals’. Grand, prominent buildings house them; the masses flock on a Sunday to visit them. In Brisbane there is the added appeal of being inside a large, cool public building, hiding from the subtropical heat. Of an air-conditioned refuge that is not a shopping centre, that is.

In urban design terms, the engagement of a major civic building with its urban context is a challenge not always resolved. Not that such a building has to pretend to be something it is not. GoMA is not stitched into a tight existing urban fabric, for none exists. This is a building in a landscape, but one with enough open edge treatments and views in and out to sustain an acceptable urban design interface. The main entrance to GoMA faces the (other) building of the Queensland Art Gallery, also opening onto a pleasant plaza shared with the State Library. Inside, the galleries and spaces are many and varied, white and light and, we assume, the required mix for a major modern art gallery.

There’s a tale going around that the winning design for this building succeeded in the government’s design competition because the form of the building resonates with the iconic ‘Queenslander’ house. The squat, rectangular shape, roof overhangs, battens and verandahs do give that impression. But that doesn’t mean this house of art is anything but a world-class example of modern architecture, and one of symbolic importance to a fast-growing city and state.