National Portrait Gallery Canberra

Canberra, Australia
Australian Government, Department of Finance
Competition 2005

Denton Corker Marshall was one of six finalists in the architectural competition to design the new National Portrait Gallery for Australia’s capital city.

The design draws on the sensibility of the Australian landscape: intercepted light, shade, permeability, austerity; and the Australian character: informal, open, welcoming, unpretentious, direct.

Beneath a sheltering, curved and perforated veil-like canopy, rests a series of simple timber blocks with the portrait galleries residing within.