Naala Badu, the North Building
SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa) (founded 1995) · Opened 3 December 2022
From the road the new building hardly looks like a building at all: a set of low glass pavilions with thin white roofs that seem to float, one slipping below the next as the land falls towards Woolloomooloo Bay. Trees and planted terraces fill the gaps between them, and from the upper level you look straight out over the water to the naval dockyard and the harbour. The entrance is a wide, light filled hall with rammed earth walls the colour of sandstone. Nothing is monumental; the architects wanted the galleries to feel like a walk through a park.
The Tokyo practice SANAA, led by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, won an international competition in 2015 with this idea of a building as a series of stepping terraces rather than a single block. Descending through it, you pass from bright galleries near the entrance to progressively larger and darker rooms, ending in the great dark Tank at the bottom. Look for the detailing: the very thin roof edges, the curved glass, the rammed earth walls that were built in layers on site, and the way outdoor art terraces interrupt the sequence so that you keep returning to daylight and the view.
The building opened on the third of December 2022 as the Sydney Modern Project, the largest expansion in the gallery's history, almost doubling its exhibition space. In April 2024 it was named Naala Badu, meaning seeing waters in the language of the Gadigal people, while the old building became Naala Nura, seeing country. The Yiribana gallery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art sits on the entrance level, a deliberate choice to put First Nations art at the front door.
Did You Know? The building's Gadigal name, Naala Badu, means seeing waters, and every level has a view of Woolloomooloo Bay.
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