Hansen Yuncken has celebrated the launch of the recently completed Home of the $60.5 million Arts (HOTA) Gallery on the Gold Coast, the largest public gallery outside a capital city in Australia, with the ability to present exhibitions and projects of national and international scale.
Designed by Melbourne-based architects ARM, the Gallery spans over six levels, with over 2,000 square metres of AAA-rated, international standard exhibition space which includes:
- The Main Exhibition Gallery – a 1000 square metre space, designed specifically for touring exhibitions of international size and scale. It will be a column-free space with soaring six-metre-high ceilings;
- A dedicated Children’s Gallery;
- 900 square metre of exhibition space for the City collection and temporary exhibitions; and
- Nearly 1000 square metres of collection storage, work-space and crate storage area.
CEO of HOTA, Criena Gehrke, said the Gallery will challenge everything people thought they knew about arts and culture on the Gold Coast, it’s bold, unapologetic and completely unbound by tradition.
“HOTA Gallery represents everything we believe in at HOTA, from local artists front and centre in our first major exhibition, to hidden and unexpected stories in our collection galleries, exquisite Indigenous art and wonderful, immersive experiences for our youngest culture vultures in the Children’s Gallery, there is truly something for everyone.”
Commissioned by the Gallery, 19 emerging and established Australian artists and collectives, each with a personal connection to the Gold Coast region, have created new works exploring the relationship between people and place, the human impact on the natural world, as well as the urban environment and beauty of the landscape.
According to Hansen Yuncken, the HOTA Gallery project provided a series of challenges for the company’s construction teams, beginning with the erection of the feature stair that weaves up the tower from ground floor to rooftop bar.
A pop-out structure provides a unique outlook from the Exhibitionist Bar at the top of the five-level building which required extensive planning and input from multiple parties to design. The propping and prefabricated steel column custom cradle system was required to be erected in large sections off site, before being transported and incorporated into the build.
During the delivery of the project, over 1,200 people worked on the construction of the new facility, including over 50 per cent of local businesses from the Gold Coast region.
Queensland State Manager, Greg Baumann, said Hansen Yuncken is proud to have been part of the construction of such an important new cultural project.
“In particular, we are proud to be able to work with so many specialist Gold Coast-based businesses. This local connection means that not only will the HOTA Gallery play host to the work of the area’s artists, but that the project could include artisans and tradespeople, who were an integral part of the construction of the very walls themselves.”
Information on the HOTA Gallery’s 2021 exhibition program can be found at www.hota.com.au with further details and programming to be announced in late 2021.
