National Museum of Australia, Canberra by Ashton Raggatt McDougall
October 4th, 2008 - Posted in Architecture Design
The National Museum of Australia required the master planning of the entire peninsula, including associated urban design and landscaping, and was won through an international design competition. Howard Raggatt (design architect and design director for the project) is an Australian architect, member of the firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall or , working with Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan Architects as a joint venture, completed this $155m project and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in March 2001.
The National Museum of Australia is a cultural history museum with three permanent galleries, a touring gallery, three high definition digital theatres, workshops and unloading facilities, curatorial facilities and major public function and orientation spaces, restaurants, retail and grand public spaces.
The 11 hectare site includes an extensive landscape which at once engages the site with the National Capital, and makes an entirely new landscape. The site is marked by a great axis which joins the Federal Parliament House with Uluru in Central Australia. Along and around this axis there is an exploration of the issues and themes which have made significant marks in the social history of the country. Through an extension of the ideas inherent in museology, the landscape of the entire site takes on a meaning well beyond the simple geographical place as a peninsula in an artificial lake.
The project was delivered through an innovative form of procurement called Project Alliancing. This is the first time this has been used on a building project in the world, and together with our Alliance partners it delivered excellent results with no disputes on time and on budget.
