Architect appointed for new Sydney Uni museum

The University of Sydney has appointed Johnson Pilton Walker (JPW) to design a new museum.

The new museum, to be named the Dr Chau Chak Wing Museum, will adaptively reuse the university’s historic Macleay Museum building and the neighbouring Edgeworth David building. A new extension will connect the two, creating a 6,000-square-metre facility. It will also include a 240-seat theatre and conservation laboratory spaces.

“The Macleay Building was the southern hemisphere’s first purpose-built university museum,” said David Ellis, director of museums and cultural engagement at the University of Sydney. “With the generosity of our donors and the experienced architects of JPW we are now in the exciting position of being able to transform the Macleay building back to its original purpose and make additions to create a new, vibrant museum and engaging learning space for students.”

The new museum will house artistic, scientific and archaeological artefacts from existing collections, which, in total, contain an estimated 700,000 artefacts: The Macleay collection, which includes Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islander cultural materials; the Nicholson collection, containing artefacts from Egypt, Greece, Italy, Cyprus and the Near East; and the University Art collection, which holds a range of Australian, Chinese and Japanese art. Artworks from the Power collection will also be housed in the new museum.

Currently, only one percent of the collections can be displayed. The new museum will provide 1,800 square metres of exhibition space, allowing a greater number of the artefacts to been seen by the public.

The project will be partly funded through a $15 million donation from billionaire property tycoon Dr Chau Chak Wing, who, in 2011, also contributed $20 million to the University of Technology, Sydney’s new business school designed by Frank Gehry, which opened in 2014. Last week, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the university received two additional donations for the new museum: $1 million from the Nelson Meers Foundation and $750,000 from architect Penelope Seidler. The museum is estimated to cost $42 million.

In September 2015, the University of Sydney invited expressions of interest from selected architects specializing in the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings.

The proposed Dr Chau Chak Wing Museum is scheduled to open in 2018.

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