Perth Brutal: Dreaming In Concrete

AGWA 40 – Celebrating the Art Gallery of WA’s 1979 Brutalist building anniversary.

Opened on 2 October 1979 by then Premier Charles Court, the new Art Gallery of WA building was a dramatic example of late Brutalist architecture designed by Polish born Charles Sierakowski.

This exhibition opens out the many layers of the history of the building’s development featuring images of the building in construction and its early days, along with ephemera such as building models, plans, diagrams and drawings, and early promotional brochures about the structure and its place in the Cultural Centre.

The iconic structure marked the end of a 10 year building boom and had been dreamt of for years before that by Gallery Director Frank Norton, whose own international researches and design thinking also fed the building’s final form.

Speakers:
Dr Robert Cook, AGWA Curator of 20th Century Arts
Dunja Rmandić, AGWA Associate Curator of 21st Century Arts
Melissa Harpley, AGWA Manager of Curatorial Affairs | Curator of 19th Century Arts
Winthrop Professor Simon Anderson, The University of Western Australia
Dr Annette Condello, Director of Graduate Research at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Curtin University
Andrew Murray, PhD Candidate, School of Design, University of Melbourne

A symposium celebrating the 40th anniversary of the AGWA building and Perth’s early role in the architectural style in Australia. Followed by guided tours of the AGWA building, Perth Brutal: Dreaming in Concrete and the iconic brutalist Curtin University campus.

AGWA 40
2019 marks and celebrates the 40th year anniversary of the main Gallery building as AGWA presents a series of exhibitions and special events looking at the building: the exhibit Perth Brutal: Dreaming in Concrete, plus talks, performances and a symposium presented with Curtin University’s School of Architecture. The art of the 1970s in WA will also be revisited in the exhibition That Seventies Feeling...the Late Modern.

Image credit - Fritz Kos Art Gallery of Western Australia 1979. State Library of Western Australia. Sourced from the collections of the State Library of Western Australia and reproduced with the permission of the Library Board of Western Australia. (160419PD) (224276PD)