10 October 2017:

#NationalGalleryofVictoria main #courtyard. Original design #RoyGrounds, completed 1968; exterior and courtyard walls clad in Melbourne #bluestone, pretty unusual for the 60s.

The #Glassroof and that triangular thing masking the escalators part of complete overhaul in 2003 designed by #MarioBellini. What happened still makes me mad, there’s more floor space, but the woody textured gallery interiors I grew up with are completely gone, only this space (half obscured) and the great hall left, and a bit of the foyer ceiling.

11 June 2025

Youve probably never noticed but out the back of the NGVI is this building, which is actually triangular. It was built as the NGV Art School, and opened with the gallery in 1967; it had a double height space in the middle for exhibitions, a surrounding skylight, with the top level an open plan studio, and other rooms below.

It was part of the original design idea from 1959 by Roy Grounds, a rectangular gallery, a circular spire /theatre, and this equilateral triangular bit – he really liked elemental geometry ! In the 1950s he was noted for a series of houses that were square or circular or triangular. The detailing is similar to the main gallery, with a wide projecting eave, but with precast instead of bluestone walls. In the extensive 2002 revamp by Mario Bellini, a long narrow bluestone clad building was added along the street side, an unusually sensitive action given the complete gutting elsewhere. The gallery school merged with the new Victorian College of the Arts in 1973, but the fine art classes stayed here until ….1990? A friend who studied there c1980 said it was very nice. It’s now the staff offices. Plan and early model from the Australian Performing Arts Collection.

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