Design immemorial: The Nicholson Galleries, Chau Chak Wing Museum

At the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum, the new Nicholson Galleries, designed by Studio Plus Three, respects and celebrates the largest collection of antiquities in the Southern Hemisphere.

Set within the weighted concrete form of the JPW-designed Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, the new Nicholson Galleries, designed by Studio Plus Three, houses what is proudly proclaimed by the university’s website as “the most extensive collection of antiquities in the southern hemisphere.”

Built around the 3,000 artefacts originally donated by Sir Charles Nicholson in 1860, the collection has expanded over the years with various acquisitions, donations and bequests, alongside objects uncovered by the university’s own archaeological exploits into a collection some 10 times greater than the original donation. Relocating the collection from its previous location in the corner of the original university quadrangle building provided the gallery an opportunity to reflect, reassess and consider what its intention should be.

The new gallery is home to around 3,000 artefacts from Egypt, Greece and Rome.

The new gallery is home to around 3,000 artefacts from Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Image: Brett Boardman

The gallery comprises six exhibition spaces located across a single lower level of the new building. Working with the building parti, Studio Plus Three took inspiration from ancient Roman peristyle sculpture gardens, with the “opening” gallery using the natural light of the central sky-lit atrium to present the Roman collection of busts “sub-divo.” Able to be viewed from all sides, the busts are set at various heights on a carefully designed set of pillars of differing material translucence, giving each figure a sense of individuality. This display technique, along with a series of marble funerary inscriptions set on an adjacent wall, combine to urge the viewer to consider who the actual people represented by these ancient objects might have been.

The visitor is then drawn in and under the heavier section of the building, to the Egyptian collection, by the beautifully lit granodiorite head of Ramses II. Set at the end of one of the main axes that establishes the organization of the galleries, the implied weight of the building above, along with the shift in lighting, gives these spaces a decidedly subterranean feel. Once inside this sequence, the second organizational axis reveals itself, marked out by a series of pillars that draw a reference from the hypostyle halls of ancient Egypt. To one side is the Mummy Room, entered by crossing over a threshold of light between two of these pillars. The four sarcophagi within are set with a counterpoint of gold-framed niches. Within these niches, black mirrors hold ethereal computed tomography (CT) scans that float into existence and reveal the contents of the physical coffins before disappearing from view, leaving the visitor with only a reflection of themselves.

Inside the Mummy Room, ethereal CT scans float into existence from seamless black mirrors before disappearing, leaving only the visitor’s own reflection.

Inside the Mummy Room, ethereal CT scans float into existence from seamless black mirrors before disappearing, leaving only the visitor’s own reflection.

Image: Brett Boardman

Re-engaging with the main organizational axis, the visitor is led through another gallery of Egyptian antiquities. No fixings were allowed into the base building. Consequently, the freestanding elements – the pillars, niches and cabinetry – are applied with a varied array of specialist material finishes appropriate to each exhibition. This allows the Nicholson staff to easily modify, change and restore the exhibits, ensuring the long-term sustainability and flexibility of the exhibition structure.

Light is again used to draw the visitor in, before they are steered slowly into the “outside” once more – this time to the Impressions of Greece gallery. Here, inspiration derives from early methods of photography display – with the use of backlit glass plates. Studio Plus Three taps into this idea by wrapping illuminated images taken by William John Woodhouse – the honorary curator of the Nicholson Museum and professor of Greek at the university in the first part of the twentieth century – around a newly created double-curved exhibition space reminiscent of a church nave. The effect of re-creating natural light in the space gives the visitor a hint of what Woodhouse may have experienced during one of his archaeological surveys around 100 years ago.

The Impressions of Greece gallery plays on the techniques of early glass plate photography, creating a double-curved lightbox.

The Impressions of Greece gallery plays on the techniques of early glass plate photography, creating a double-curved lightbox.

Image: Brett Boardman

Winding back out into the central atrium space, the visitor reconnects with the overall building layout to view a series of large glass cabinets supported on specially painted cabinet plinths. These cabinets have been carefully detailed to allow discrete access to the displayed items inside when maintenance or a change of exhibition is required.

Studio Plus Three set out to initiate an “emotional connection of visitors to the content, developed through strategies of atmosphere, perspective, and sensory experience.” Using light as its key instrument, and duly supported by a thorough understanding of colour, weight and texture, the studio has generated atmospheres that allow the visitor to make a genuine connection to the gallery and its exhibited objects. Perhaps more importantly, the user experience it has designed connects the visitor to the actual subjects, artists and craftsmen who created the artefacts in the collection, and in turn offers an insight into the time in which they were created.

Products and materials

Walls and ceilings
Custom applied texture finishes by scenic painter. Ceiling painted in Dulux ‘Lexicon Half.’
Flooring
Boral Envisia in-situ concrete, specified by JPW
Joinery
Custom joinery by PreSet Constructions
Lighting
Erco, specified by JPW. Ljus Design lighting.
Furniture
George Nelson benches by Herman Miller from Living Edge.
Other
Showcases by Designcase.

Credits

Project
The Nicholson Galleries by Studio Plus Three
Design practice
studioplusthree
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Project Team
Simon Rochowski, Julin Ang, Joseph Byrne
Consultants
Builder Art Services NSW, PreSet Constructions
Graphic design Maria Mosquera
Lighting design Ben Cisterne
Aboriginal Nation
Built on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation.
Site Details
Location Sydney,  NSW,  Australia
Site type Urban
Project Details
Status Built
Completion date 2020
Design, documentation 16 months
Construction 7 months
Category Public / cultural
Type Culture / arts

Source

Project

Published online: 23 Feb 2022
Words: David Welsh
Images: Brett Boardman

Issue

Artichoke, December 2021

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