Inside Australia’s most luxurious art gallery
Henry Bird heads to Sydney to review the city’s new £180 million exhibition space – and smart Capella hotel – featuring Aboriginal art
Otherworldly shadows dance across the walls as roaming spotlights puncture the darkness, the scent of oil and industry in the air. I’m standing in the middle of a vast wartime bunker that has been repurposed as a cavernous, almost sepulchral display space in the bowels of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, part of the institution’s stunning new £180 million expansion.
The unveiling of the North Building, designed by Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architects SANAA, is perhaps Sydney’s most significant cultural opening since the Opera House half a century ago. Back then, art by indigenous Australians tended to be classified as “ethnographic material”, often stripped of its artistic value. In 1994 it was given its own space in the Yiribana Gallery, housed in the depths of the neoclassical-style South Building. Now that gallery has been brought into the light — literally.
Sunshine permeates every inch of the new space (with the exception of the Tank), a sprawling glass complex of fluid lines and expansive display walls that cascades down to the harbour below, making good on director Michael Brand’s promise of a “porous connection between indoors and outdoors”. As soon as I enter, the Yiribana — literally meaning “this way” in the Eora language — beckons me in, and I’m surrounded by contemporary interpretations of Aboriginal shields, intricate sculptures created with discarded bush metal and what look like delicate teardrops of handblown glass catching the light above me, which are revealed to be a representation of the poisonous clouds that rained across Aboriginal land following British nuclear tests in the mid-20th century.
Sydney threw its support behind the ultimately unsuccessful Voice to Parliament vote, a national referendum, which would have created a permanent body for indigenous people to advise parliament. Many of the city’s cultural institutions are doing more to celebrate and recontextualise indigenous artwork, with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia recently appointing its first director of First Nations Art and Cultures. It was also a priority for the team behind Capella Sydney, the city’s newest luxury hotel, which asserts itself over an entire city block in the historic Sandstone Precinct of heritage government buildings.
The Edwardian Baroque-style façade has been lovingly restored and as soon as I enter there are hints of the Capella’s previous life as both the Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture, with polished bronze directory boards on either side. Instead of presenting the names of civil servants or meeting rooms, however, they have been elegantly repurposed as frames for botanical canvases by First Nation artist Judy Watson that set the stage for the Florentine palazzo-like indoor courtyard, festooned with weeping fig trees and a 7m green wall of local flora.
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The rest of the hotel unfurls from this central atrium, and before I’ve even unpacked I’m wandering through its corridors and cosy nooks, which are adorned with a multimillion-dollar collection of more than 1,400 individual works by contemporary Australian and First Nation artists. The fingerprints of the hotel’s official design consultant, The Artling, are evident everywhere I look, with curated pieces in each of the 192 luxurious rooms as well as the Auriga Spa up on the sixth floor.
Rather aptly, I learn that this idyllic wellness space used to be the government department’s own unofficial art gallery. It is now a sanctuary of elegant white marble, with the space’s restored heritage lantern roof bathing the 20m pool in natural light. With such a fine blend of tradition and luxury, it’s clear that rumours of the Capella being Sydney’s new grande dame have not been exaggerated.
As difficult as it is to part from such opulence, the city awaits, and the Capella’s prime position in the central business district (CBD) makes it the ideal place from which to explore some of Sydney’s newest culinary delights (not forgetting the elegant French Brasserie 1930 within the hotel’s own four walls). Unwittingly I end up doing a mini tour of heritage hotels, first with a visit to Bar Morris, an art deco-esque boutique wine bar and restaurant nestled within the lobby of a towering palazzo-style hotel that was the city’s tallest in the 1920s but has since been dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the CBD. Since opening in June it’s become a buzzy pre-theatre hotspot, perfect for a cocktail or contemporary Italian feast from the Puglian chef Rosy Scatigna. I squeeze in a jaunt to the Henry Deane lounge, which perches atop the historic Hotel Palisade on the edge of Millers Point; I also sit in the Flying Fox private lounge — one of four — while being brought a steady stream of perfectly portioned grazing dishes (black sesame pear with burnt honey is a standout) as I gaze over unparalleled panoramic views of the harbour.
This is a flying visit to see two of the Australian city’s new iconic sights. But lying back in my seat on Etihad, which jets me back in comfort in 24 hours, makes even going to the other side of the world easy. The airline’s attentive staff and spacious business suites (I’m 6ft 2in and was comfortable throughout) made for a blissful final day away, with only the sight of Heathrow’s arrivals gate snapping me back to reality.
artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Doubles at Capella Sydney from £400, capellahotels.com. Etihad return business flights from London Heathrow to Sydney start at £3,521, etihad.com
