RICHARD JOHNSON: I'm going to talk about a sense of place as it relates to this place and specifically as it relates to the light of this place as an introduction to talking about the National Portrait Gallery. A sense of place is a very complex notion. It involves history, people, memory, expectations, senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, as well as the physical aspects of landscape, flora, fauna and, of course, architecture.

Canberra certainly has what one would call a distinctive sense of place, but any attempt to define it more precisely is difficult. We often just sense its soul or its genius loci through its non‑material characteristics. One aspect of our senses that contributes to uniqueness of place, as I've observed increasingly, is the light, the sunlight falling upon the landscape, diffused by the cloud, reflected from water, rendering the landscape, the architecture, the materials, the texture of the place visible and subtly and at times dramatically colouring it and at dawn and dusk and refracting its rays into spectral light.

This is a microscopic image of a butterfly's wing which we're using in another project to inspire our thinking.

The often unique quality of light specific to each place or region is one important and identifiable characteristic that defines a place. In preparing this lecture I came upon prose by an Australian folk singer, whom I'd never heard of, I must confess, called Pat Drummond, who intriguingly suggests that Australian light might also even shape our national sensibilities and I'll quote, although I should be singing it; I believe it was a song. But I'll excuse you my bad voice:

And whilst I'm sympathetic to the sentiments behind this idea, I optimistically believe that just as our eyes need time to adjust to extreme conditions of light before we can see clearly, that nationally, at least, some of us are attempting to see with an increased subtlety. So with these qualifications let me begin.

Theories of light have long occupied the minds of philosophers like Aristotle, scientists like Newton, and painters such as Titian and Turner and this work by Turner, Norham Castle, Sunrise, painted in 1835, is a work that we've had a modest print of in our house for some decades. Light is also considered so important that in numerous cultures it's identified directly with their god. Umberto Eco, in his book on beauty, talks about the platonic concept of good as the 'sun' of ideas—direct link with the light. We often remark of the different qualities of light when we travel across the globe from one hemisphere to another. Light changes character, in intensity, diffusion and colour, because of atmospheric conditions in accordance with the latitude on the globe. 

I've become increasingly interested in the quality of light of Denmark, where I've been travelling to for some time, with its gentle landscape and its low cloud cover giving a soft, diffused, almost photographer's studio light, a light in which the subtle shades of even very bright colours are visible, a light that has influenced Danish artists and architects. This is Fredensborg housing by Jorn Utzon completed in 1965. But we don't need to travel to the other side of the world to see differences that contribute to a distinct reading of place. Identifiable differences even exist between places only a short distance apart, simply because of topography and landscape.

I live in a rainforest valley in Sydney. It has shadows in winter and dappled light in summer. It's very different at any time of the day or season from areas just a few suburbs away. It's made me more aware of the pattern of shadows on surfaces, for instance, and more susceptible to glare. Artists, particularly those who've attempted to capture landscape, are often more aware of this unique quality of light than architects, as they attempt to paint in a region or to capture the spirit of a place. John Ruskin, in his seminal work Modern Painters, discussing the effects of light on architectural detail, says:

 

I agree. We as architects do not understand how our buildings are made legible by light.

Architectural notions of internationalism have often tended to ignore the role of light in determining a distinct reading of form, material, texture or colour. Even notions of regionalism tend to focus on traditions, materials, or typologies. They seldom overtly identify with issues of light. In architecture, light should be a fundamental consideration at the point of conception.

Louis Kahn, and this is one of his masterpieces, the Kimbell Art Museum, in one of his lectures discussing architectural space, said:

He argues that light must be in the very fabric of the concept and must inform the development of the idea. I have come to realise that many of the subtle judgments an architect makes about form, material, detail, colour, scale, should be informed by the essential understanding of their legibility in the light of the place if the architecture is to become part of that place.

Materials are an obvious example. It is often the local stone or brick used to build a city that is the most harmonious in the landscape. Sydney sandstone seems to both respond to and capture an essential element of the light and landscape of the place, of the region, in the same way that Portland stone does in London or limestone does in Paris or other stones do in myriads of other cities. Strangely enough, Sydney sandstone looks odd in other places and imported stones look out of place in Sydney. They're perceived in different light and surrounded by different landscape. The colour, as we know, of an object results from selective absorption of light energy by its atoms. Sensations of colour don't exist without light. The light of a place is subtly different and renders the materials of that place in a unique way. I'm fully aware that the precise nature of light is one of the key questions of modern physics, so I'm not going to say any more about that. I'd rather focus on architecture, on surer ground.

I think in architecture there are many precedents of buildings capturing the unique qualities of the light of a place. Anyone that's experienced the Acropolis at sunrise or sunset and sensed the luminosity of the marble, the precision and refinement of the detailing, also senses the spirit of the place and culture. This perception is in no small way due to an understanding of light. I'm sure we could all call to mind our own examples. For me, and perhaps with some predictability, I immediately think of the Sydney Opera House. Jorn Utzon, in this building, has so remarkably understood and interpreted a sense of place that it's become a symbol of that place. Certainly form, scale, material, detail, colour, cultural aspirations and many other layers of expression in the building contribute to this powerful symbolic form. Nevertheless, many of the qualities are enriched in their expression by Utzon's observations and knowledge of light. It is the particular light of Sydney Harbour that his design harnesses to reveal the magic of his masterpiece.

As Eero Saarinen urged Utzon, 'Keep the building white, in contrast to the blue harbour and the bright blue sky.' Utzon knew that the intensity of the sun reflecting off his white form would increase this contrast, but potentially could rob the building of detail and confuse its form. He sited the two auditoria deliberately at an angle to each other. You can see it marvellously here. And he did that so that either sunlight, direct or diffused by cloud, always hit each shell at a different angle and rendered the light and shade differently from its adjacent form. You can see it again, marvellously, the light on this side of that shell is totally different from this one and that from this, which means that if he'd planned the buildings to be parallel, the intense Sydney light would have made one shell indistinct against another. He detailed the shells with gloss tiles to sparkle in the sunlight and with matte tiles to express the geometry of the shell rib. This ensures that even on the brightest Sydney day the light defines both the structural form and the detail of construction.

These architectural effects are certainly not accidental. He took two years to study the tile patterns, the tile material and the glazes after constructing full‑size prototypes before he finalised his design. He was informed by his knowledge of, at that time, and observations of Sydney first hand, the effects of light from harbour and sky. After all, he's a keen sailor. His father was a naval architect. And he'd been observing these things for a long time. Utzon in one of our discussions about these matters, with one of those charming glints that he gets in his eye from time to time, appropriated a quote from Lou Kahn—'The sun was not aware of its wonder until it struck the side of my building', he said, with all modesty. When you achieve a result like that, there's no need for modesty. But he is a modest man.

I think even in his recent refurbishment work, yet unbuilt, for a new opera theatre interior, he has created a colourful acoustic ceiling of cylindrical and radial geometry focusing on the stage. You can see with this plan‑form the focus of the radial geometry. This is a reflected ceiling plan. Gilded to both define shape in low light and to reflect light from the stage, contributing to the spectacle of the opera, so that as the performance lights change, the auditorium was alive with reflected light. It was the same idea he'd experienced in the Royal Opera Theatre in Copenhagen in the light reflected off the gilded decoration.

Sydney Opera House certainly captures natural light in such a way as to become inseparable from place.

I think despite the geographical proximity of Sydney and Canberra, the light in Canberra is very, very different. You sense it as soon as you arrive. I noticed it this afternoon. I got off the plane at about 4 o'clock. It was sharp, it was clear, it was intense, it rendered detail with exceptional clarity—extraordinary light. So Canberra has cleaner air, higher altitude and, so they tell me, more sunlight hours than any other place in Australia. The light is sharp and colour is precise. This is Floriade a few years ago. Form is clearly defined; materials, detail and texture accurately rendered. Even when clouded in winter mists, you see clearly. The urban landscape, with its European planting, because of the light, is more colourful. The sun at a low altitude in early morning or late evening is remarkably intense and sharp with strongly defined shadows. Its lower path through the atmosphere is less diffused or softened by atmospheric pollution. There is an extraordinary sharpness and precision in this early morning or late afternoon light. We can see clearly at greater distances than in other places, where the atmosphere reduces clarity. The light from a clear, intense source reflected off pavements and building surfaces has intensity and adds brightness and definition, and I think certainly Col Madigan in this great building that I'm privileged to be in understood the quality of light and how it might play off his sculptural surfaces. This is the light that forms our perception and understanding of the Parliamentary Triangle. This is the light that anyone privileged enough to build in this precinct should attempt to understand.

Of course we know that. The mountains surrounding Canberra are vegetated with predominantly glaucous coloured species and this tone is often reinforced due to atmospheric perspective. The mountains are clearly visible from a great distance because of the cleanness of the air and the intensity of the light. And they act as an almost painterly grey counterpoint to the colours of exotic species in the city, adding drama and exaggerating the sunlight effect on the city and exotic urban landscape.

The second idea relates to the lake. Such a large body of water in the centre of the city acts with the sky, cloud, and even with temperature like the mist, to create a sky mirror or reflector giving greater quality and variety to the light. Buildings surrounding the light greatly benefit from this reflection and present also a clarion detail, a material rendering that's quite rare in an urban environment.

The third relates to the land axis, which generally runs more predominantly north‑south than east‑west. This strategy clearly derives from the alignment of topographical features and probably had nothing to do in Griffin's mind with light, but it ensures that as the sun passes from morning to night, that the long shadows render a more dramatic and changing image along the axis. That's a midday image and, of course, the late evening image is totally in shadow and of course the sun is coming from one side in the morning and the other in the afternoon. I'm not a Griffin scholar, so I can't say that he consciously considered light to this degree in his plan, but I'm sure that the characteristics of the light rendering his brilliant plan and making it perceptive to us significantly contributes to our understanding and sense of the uniqueness of this place.

I'd now like to explain our concept for the new National Portrait Gallery and to illustrate how we've attempted to incorporate some of these ideas into the design. The brief for the building placed great emphasis on natural light as a critical element in appreciating portraiture. It is important to realise that the artist generally paints in natural light and so the subtle nuances of paint texture and colour are best appreciated in similar light. There are still some that believe that galleries devoid of natural light and totally lit by artificial light are best and most flexible for the display of art, and unfortunately many of these are still being built around the world. These spaces, and people who believe that they are the best, argue they provide the ultimate curatorial and conservation flexibility and conditions and ensure total focus on the art. I disagree, because the focus of this argument is often the conservation of the artefact, not its appreciation, and I believe the two are not mutually exclusive, as many historic and recent galleries ably demonstrate.

Very fortunately, my client for the National Portrait Gallery wanted natural light and, in fact, so much so it was a fundamental mandatory requirement of the brief. He was interested in the visitor experience as a whole, the engagement between art and observer as part of a rich sequence of experiences.

In thinking about the light needed to appreciate art and how to capture, control and integrate it into the design as an essential element of the architecture, I've been greatly influenced by Lou Kahn's writings and, of course, his Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Kahn said, 'I can't define a space really as a space unless I have natural light. Natural light gives mood to spaces by nuances of light in the same time of day and the seasons of the year as it enters and modifies the space.' He makes it look easy—and this is one of the most satisfying experiences. Many of these images I'm showing you are almost impossible to capture on film or by digital means. They're memory joggers of what I remember seeing and they give us all a hint of the marvel of these spaces. Despite the apparent ease of this, Kahn also said of this building, of the design of galleries, 'It's a constant struggle with the light.' So he saw the light as being the primary determinant of the form and detail of a gallery, and I do too.

I was inspired also by Sir John Soanes's Dulwich Picture Gallery, built in 1814. That's unfortunately a bad image of it to display the point, but those of you who have been there will know what I am talking about. It beautifully demonstrates that it's possible to design galleries for the appreciation of art with correct curatorial levels of light, with the gallery totally lit by natural light.

I've also been influenced by two particular Danish buildings which helped inspire me, refine my ideas about the possibility of light within a building. They're both churches, in fact. Grundtvigs Church by Jensen‑Klint, finished in 1926, designed around 1910, has an extraordinary quality, a spiritual quality, of light. This is a building that Utzon told me to go and see. And he told me that when he was a young man he went there when the church was being built. These columns are solid brick and the bricks inside the columns are finished with the same degree of precision as the bricks outside. The workers hand-rubbed them and carefully placed them in the column, because they were told that the church community had donated each brick, as a community of artists and writers and poets, and that each brick represented the soul of a departed brethren and needed to be treated with care. The whole building is so incredibly inspiring, but it captures that softness of the light in Denmark.

So back to the portrait gallery. I'll describe its relationship to the precinct, its planning, its form and materials, but in the process attempt to explain how the building was influenced by particular perceptions and qualities of Canberra light and illustrate how we've used the characteristics of this light within the building to enrich the appreciation of the art.

I think it's also directional and can orient a visitor in the museum and gallery and as there are many tasks or many demands made of a gallery visitor it's reassuring to know where you are in the building and where you're facing, which direction, and whether it's raining or sunny or what it's like outside. So I think this connection with the outside keeps you in the gallery longer, keeps you refreshed longer, and makes you appreciate the art in a more direct way.

Natural light also presents a rich palate of stimulation that stimulates the eye rather than fatigues the muscles. So if one is in a gallery that's lit totally in a pretty predictable way with artificial light, the eye muscles are not all being exercised and you very quickly become visually tired and not able to focus on the work. And I think we all know that natural light and, indeed, sunlight, contribute to a sense of wellbeing. They have a very positive effect on us. And when you capture that inside a building, I think it certainly has an ability to create an environment that's conducive to serious examination and study of the art.

So let's talk about the building. I think this is the mission of the gallery to increase the understanding of the Australian people, their identity, history, creativity and culture through portraiture. I learnt that there's not that many national portrait galleries in the world and of the few we are the only one that's attempting to focus on an understanding of us as a people in broad terms, not a display of the rich and famous and influential. So, for a start, this is a wonderful mission, I think, for an Australian National Portrait Gallery, and one that we were inspired to respond to with a building that was direct and open and tried to express something about our characteristics.

The site, as I'm sure most of you know, is in this extraordinary position just east of the land axis in a precinct with these marvellous buildings of the National Gallery that we're in and the High Court in this wonderful precinct of native landscape. For me, I think of all of the precincts in the Parliamentary Triangle, this is one of the most distinguished. So it's a great challenge to relate to these buildings. Of course, we went back to Griffin. What could we learn from Griffin? Griffin reinforced—this is one of his diagrams—the land axis and the water axis by five plateaus stepping down to the water, with buildings for various arms of government. Our building responds with five pavilions parallel with the water axis, perpendicular to the land axis, and interstitial spaces, corridor spaces, which are not only important in terms of the circulation systems within the building, but are important to get the light and reflect the light off these surfaces visible from the ends and from inside so that this building doesn't read as a singular mass, but as five pavilions. And I'll discuss that more in a moment.

It recognises that the Holford Plan refocused the Griffin plan to accept that, instead of continuous buildings in the landscape defining urban spaces, Canberra was more likely to develop as isolated buildings within a landscape setting and that the need to reinforce the landscape as part of the urban design. So for us this landscape, which is exceptionally fine, was an important element of our consideration. The National Capital Authority Plan identified an idea of establishing with the new building here a definition of a loosely defined campus space and so this building was important in terms of its relationship to its two distinguished neighbours, so that the three would work together to define a larger central space. And we saw the great opportunity of having the entrance to this building at the former National Place level, at the level that's common to the entry level of the High Court and the current entrance to this building and the entrance to the portrait gallery at the same level and that vista across to the library over Reconciliation Place was all part of that grander composition.

Certainly we could do nothing—nor would wish to—to disturb or distract from the importance of that access to the court. The NCA's plan also recognised that the principal facade of this building would be King Edward Terrace, secondary facade to the campus, and another important facade fronting the lake. That as a strategy had some consequences for the light. The principal facade of the building, facing south, which is in shadow for most of the day, certainly gets wonderful oblique light in Canberra early morning and late evening, but it presents a challenge. This building solved that challenge beautifully by having a transparency through it to the light beyond. I'll show you how we've dealt with this image in a bit more detail later.

We also had the notion that the entrance had to be at this part of the site to connect with National Place, so that the point of entry to this precinct or this, I guess, this building, is an external court defined by this dramatically cantilevered wall and a smaller one here that refocuses you before you enter the building in a foyer that's visible and transparent east and west. Certainly we not only had to be responsible to the past, but more even to our recent past. There are extraordinarily interesting relationships between the geometry of the landscape and the generating geometry of these two buildings. The gallery, as we know, has a 30‑60 degree generating geometry, which extends out into the landscape to structure the landscape in an otherwise natural setting. The same strategy occurs in the High Court, which is defined on a 45 degree grid and those 45 degrees angles generate the landscape. So for us the geometry is very simple and the landscape and the building geometry should be consistent and express one another.  So for us here was a way where the portrait gallery could haveits own character, but be part of the same strategy that other buildings employed in the precinct.

It's not only proportions, it's actually physical scale that we had to get right, so we looked at a much loved space in the Old Parliament House—Kings Hall—where the existing portrait gallery is housed. And that, strangely enough, is very close to the proportion of our lobby. This space also was determined in the 1920s, or whenever it was built, by golden section proportion—a most wonderful, distinguished, grand but human space. And so it's an interesting lesson for us.

We were inspired by the notion, I think, that an Australian building should attempt to have some characteristics that relate to who we are or that relate to the land. And I think the strongest relationship in my mind is the simplicity and honesty of rural vernacular buildings—the shearing shed. It's not that we wanted our building to look like a shearing shed at all, but we want it to feel as self‑evident, as honest and straightforward, fit for its purpose. We want the materials of which the building is built to be visible and visibly support the walls supporting the roof, just as happens in this building; not be ashamed that the concrete that supports the structure should somehow or other be considered inferior and need decoration. It does not. It is the decoration—properly detailed, properly bathed in light.

We wanted a building that was welcoming, that certainly responded to the place and that one felt that you could easily approach and enjoy as part of the cultural life of this place, not a building that you went to when there was a particular show on or once in your life or when visitors came from somewhere else, but a building, as Guillen once said, a building that became the living room of the city, so a building that was so friendly and open that you might go there for coffee, you might see an exhibition or you might not, you might go there for the bookshop, but this becomes a public place of the city, not somewhere to be intimidated by, a building that's simple on one level and you can see here clearly the five pavilions and these corridor spaces with light coming from the edge and the northern light coming and being diffused into the skylights and also as these walls extend east‑west the northern light reflects off them and bathes the southern face of these wings with reflected light so that as you walk up the ramp and the sun is in the west you're not looking at a facade without light. You're seeing the light in all of these positions. And the light is rendering the clarity of the idea, the five pavilions.

We wanted building materials and craftsmanship that was straightforward and honest, that related to the precinct. We see absolutely no other way than to build that building in the concrete of this building and the High Court. And to use it with different textures, the textures that we see in this building, but to use precast elements and polished elements so that when we're putting them on a facade or in a detail that doesn't have light, that the polish might pick up reflection. And we're interested in the idea that we can use timbers from every region in the country in the floor, in the furniture, in the roof timber framing and in the plywood lining. That is a true indication of this place as a nation, the collection of states, and yet is a material that really also relates to the landscape. It forms almost the canopy, like the roof canopy—so the trusses and the timber lining of the roof is very important, and the softness of the timber floor in the galleries as well.

And the plan has a simplicity of entrance space and public function spaces and lecture theatres and introductory galleries and temporary exhibition galleries and collection galleries here, and as you move through, all the time through these corridors, connected with the outside. And the light through the skylights reinforcing the linear quality of the plan, reinforcing the separation of the five pavilions, providing a rich tapestry of different light effects. There'll be no light in the temporary galleries. The contemporary gallery, which now sits here in slightly different configuration, is top lit. These galleries are side lit. So there's these galleries are lit from windows, but not above, and there's a sculpture gallery here with a total glass wall. So there's a sequence and a range of spaces giving different light conditions.

The five pavilions allow basically the five functions of administration, public, temporary exhibitions and gallery spaces to grow over time independently. The building in its materiality and in its planning responds to the climate. There's a huge range of temperatures in Canberra. As you know, one of the things about an art gallery so to keep the temperature constant. Concrete has great thermal mass. This building, if airconditioning were shut off, the objective is to be able to preserve the conditions for several days without needing the conditioning to preserve the work. Where we can, we're using mixed modes, so in the offices we can have the effect of natural ventilation on days when that's going to work and airconditioning when it won't. And with the gallery design, I think we have timber roof space, with accessible space here, so that all forms of contemporary medium can be displayed in the gallery with timber floor raised above the concrete floor for cabling and trunking, but with a scale and a light that invites serious appreciation of the work.

These renderings are recent and they show our most developed ideas. They're still preliminary, because we're still having ongoing detailed discussions about the detailed subdivision of each gallery and, of course, the hang is just indicative here, but it's trying to give us and our client the sense of the sequence and quality of the spaces and it's informing us about material, colour, detail and how we harness the light. So the contemporary galleries, the first gallery that you enter, the conception was that you went from the client, that you enter the historic collection through the contemporary and you leave it through the contemporary. It puts everything else into perspective. It makes the contemporary relevant. So we've lit the contemporary from the roof. This is the only gallery lit in that way.

You move from there into one of those corridor spaces where you may have recalled one of our earlier sketches has a much darker floor, and we realised because of the intensity of the light that if that floor were dark, this would be a glare source. So again this is part of an ongoing process of us coming to grips with the light of this place and harnessing it.

And as you move into the galleries you then sense the linear quality of the light bouncing and reflecting from the skylights off these coffers and washing the wall in uniform light. This is a most effective way of lighting pictures. If we framed, spot‑lit, each of these works, then as the eye moved from a bright source to a dark source to a bright source to a dark source, it starts to get fatigued. That's not to say that we can't frame‑spot a few works or a few pieces of sculpture, but the general feeling was to create a sense of calmness and tranquillity and simplicity in the light, but richness at the same time.

There are spaces like this that look straight outside. This is a small room for sculpture, and other gallery spaces that we're experimenting with.  This subtle glimpse always of the outside is important.

We talked earlier about the south facade not having light on it through most of the day. It has a range of different glosses and textures—this is the bush‑hammered concrete. These are very finely polished precast elements with very deep‑grooved slots in them and windows into the basement, and a reflecting pond, so that the sky, even though we won't get direct light on this, we'll get some benefit of reflection from the sky off that rippling water on to that facade. That will assist the legibility of the differences between the gloss levels and the material of the precast, the precision of that, and the rougher concrete surfaces. And the gloss of I guess the window—I am at a loss for words as to what we'd describe that; we've been calling it a blade, but that sounds too harsh a word, but it's a reflector, I suppose. And we just this morning had an inspiring discussion with our lighting engineer trying to define the principles of night lighting—and this is a bad first attempt, but we're starting to think about how the building renders itself at night. Interestingly, I think our thoughts in that respect are being inspired by the day rendering. We want the building to express itself in the same direct and honest way as it is doing during the day.

So, let me conclude by saying that the mission of our new National Portrait Gallery is to express the characteristics, aspirations and achievements of the people so very clearly articulated in the brief given to our client. It's a rare opportunity to use architecture to be both expressive of a place, but also expressive of a people, and understanding of light and the unique qualities of Canberra's light is central to this endeavour. Thank you very much.