HASSELL + OMA Design Revealed for Western Australia Museum

Construction set to begin late this year on the $320.5-million Perth project

The Western Australia government is seeking Aboriginal contractors for the 7,000-sq-m New Museum project.

Rendering by HASSELL + OMA

Construction on the $320.5-million New Museum in Perth, Western Australia, is set to start by year-end and move into high gear next year. The Western Australia government is encouraging interested Aboriginal businesses, contractors and suppliers of goods and services to register at http://museum.wa.gov.au/ticketing/invitation-register-interest. The building is scheduled for completion in 2019. Doors are set to open in 2020.

The architects HASSELL + OMA have formed a series of five stacked, offset and cantilevered blocks, with various footprint sizes. The architecture, recently unveiled by managing contractor Brookfield Multiplex and the Western Australia government, is intended to create a public venue at the Perth Cultural Centre. At the heart of the museum is an outdoor room framed by historic buildings and intersected by the new construction.

The addition to the existing museum will contain 7,000 sq meters of galleries, including a 1,000-sq-m space for large-scale temporary exhibits.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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