Building a National Portrait Gallery

The new National Portrait Gallery is the most significant building to be constructed in the Parliamentary Triangle for the last 20 years. Won through an open international design competition by Johnson Pilton Walker in 2005, the 14,000m2 building provides exhibition space for approximately 500 portraits in a simple configuration of day-lit galleries.

The external form of the building responds to its site by using the building’s geometry to connect with key vistas and alignments around the precinct. A series of five bays, each more than 70 metres long, are arranged perpendicular to the Land Axis referring to Walter Burley Griffin’s early concepts for the National Capital.

Despite the apparent simplicity of the plan, the National Portrait Gallery is a rich sequence of carefully proportioned spaces leading from the Entrance Court defined by the two large cantilever concrete blades on the eastern side of the building through the foyer to the gallery spaces. Each gallery enjoys controlled natural light from translucent glazed clerestory windows and views to the outside, reconnecting the visitor to the landscape.

All aspects of the building are informed by the notion that the proportion of a building should correspond to that of a person. This is particularly relevant to a building for portraiture and for the scale of the works in the collection.

The process of building the new National Portrait Gallery was documented in many ways.  The architect's original prize winning design, progress diaries written by the chief architect Graeme Dix and still images and a construction camera all recorded the evolution of the building from the ground up. 

To find out more about the process of building a National Portrait Gallery click on any of the related links to the right. 

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