Review: Phoenix Central Park by Durbach Block Jaggers and John Wardle

By Penny Craswell

An undulating facade of slim white bricks conceals a complex interior for both visual and performing arts at Phoenix Central Park, Judith Nielson’s latest contribution to Sydney’s cultural infrastructure. The architecture is collaborative, with Durback Block Jaggers designing the performance space and John Wardle Architects the visual arts gallery – two separate buildings linked by a courtyard and shared architectural skin.

The striking exterior of the building was a collaboration between both architecture studios; the architectural statement says that the design was created “working together, iteratively, with conversation and debate, both rigorous and polite, with irreverence, humour and respect.” The result is outstanding.

The openings are dictated by the requirements of the interiors, bringing light in or blocking it out, offering views or concealing them. Additional creases, folds and curves add to the architectural interest – what could have been straight or rectilinear is instead surprising, intriguing. For example, two large circular windows at the front are surrounded by a circular indentation in the facade, like a ripple in a pond. The architects describe this as a “dimple pressed inward”. Elsewhere the bricks seem almost sculpted in clay, or like sensuously-draped fabric.

Inside, the gallery consists of a sequence of volumes, interconnected by stairs and bridges. There is a variety of spaces – some that will suit monumentally large works or sequences of works, and some that are intimate for singular pieces. Round windows offer views through to the street or garden, oculi that are the focus of the space. The materiality here varies – walls are of concrete poured on site, plaster or timber, while floors are in brick or timber.

The performance space also uses timber for its walls, but here it curves up and across the ceiling like stepped and contoured ribs – an acoustic as well as visual application. The stage is bell-shaped and the audience views the performances from the round, like an Elizabethan theatre. Behind the stage, a balcony twists its way gradually upwards, while the light plays on the timber behind.

Both gallery and theatre have been designed with certain functional requirements in mind – to show an artwork, to host a musical ensemble. But they also recognise that art itself is shifting, changing. Contemporary art is just as likely to be a video or installation work as it is a painting – more likely even. Performances are also becoming increasingly experimental and the new requirements of social distancing are pushing the boundaries of performance art further. Sydney Dance Company’s Touch is a case in point – this beautiful dance piece filmed at Phoenix is almost as much about film-making and architecture as it is about dance and movement. The architecture, in offering surprising spatial forms, recognises, and contributes to, the experimental aspects of visual and performance art.

From an architectural point of view, one of the most interesting aspects of Phoenix Central Park is its scale – this is not a grand institution set back from the street, like the museums and galleries of old. Nor does it have the scale of a small, commercial gallery in a shopfront. This is purpose-built architecture in a semi-urban environment, matching the height of its terrace residential neighbours, but taking up several blocks – like a full-sized museum squashed into a residential block. Ultimately, the scale of the building works – large enough to be impressive, but small enough to be unusual.

Some of the most interesting galleries and museums around the world are privately funded – just think of the Frick in New York or the John Soane Museum in London or the Kröller Müller Museum in the Netherlands. This is because art philanthropists with vision have the means to truly push the edges of innovation. Bravissima to Judith Neilson for creating this jewel in the heart of Sydney.

More about Phoenix Central Park by Durbach Block Jaggers Architects [Performance Space] / John Wardle Architects [Gallery]