Niagara Galleries

Edmond & Corrigan's addition to Niagara Gallery is situated in the inner-city suburb of Richmond, opposite the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground. The project is collaged into the Victorian buildings of Punt Road with the addition visible only from the rear of the site. The exterior is a vivid expression of local culture with a stretched cubic form and clad with striped black and white metal decking while the interior is simple and economical. The project continues a line of research enquiry for the practice that explores the tradition of colour in architecture and exemplifies Edmond & Corrigan's radical break with the brutalist tradition of Melbourne architecture. The design also has a direct relationship with Peter Corrigan's theatre projects, exploring the connections between building and set design with a focus on maximum expression with minimum means. It draws heavily on symbolism to imbue the work with the spirit of Australian colonial culture incorporating cultural, social, political and historical references such as the appropriation of Sidney Nolan's thematic paintings, a reflection on 'Aussie rules' football and the use of lowbrow materials to represent the immediacy of shelter within a gentrified urban context. The project carries the spirit of Robert Venturi and particularly an engagement with Venturi's criticism of architecture as 'building-beautiful'. Niagara Galleries was awarded the RAIA Vic. Chapter BHP Colorbond Award in 2002. It was also included in the Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture and received critical acclaim from Joe Rollo in The Age newspaper and Anna Johnson in Monument magazine.