Gold Coast city’s art collection to be centrepiece of proposed cultural precinct

THE Gold Coast city’s $20-million art collection will be expanded and relocated to become a feature piece of the Evandale cultural precinct’s first stage.

Supplied Editorial GOLD COAST CULTURAL PRECINCT for Des Houghton

THE Gold Coast city’s $20-million art collection will be expanded and relocated to become a feature piece of the Evandale cultural precinct’s first stage.

A new city gallery will be built as part of the $37 million first stage, with a large chunk of the paintings and sculptures moving to the new building, and the rest remaining in the existing gallery inside the Arts Centre Gold Coast.

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However, the Bulletin can reveal the collection will be a temporary measure with the collection to be relocated yet again during the project’s second stage to the proposed “arts tower”, which will have a large-scale public gallery on its ground floor.

Councillors yesterday met behind closed doors to review plans for the $37 million first stage, which is expected to begin in November.

The art collection will be moved again when the proposed ‘arts tower’ is built.

Arts Centre Gold Coast general manager Destry Puia said the gallery would be an “excellent interim measure”.

“It is a measure while we make our way towards the future stages and will greatly help our storage issues because the gallery will be double the size of our existing facility,” he said

“The goal is to have it all placed in the tower and this will make it a lot easier, especially given we have aspirations to grow the collection.”

Construction of the precinct’s first stage will begin later this year with demolition of the existing council administration building and is expected to finish in late 2017, just months before the Commonwealth Games.

The first stage of work will include a 2500-seat amphitheatre with capacity for 8000-10,000 people.

The new outdoor spaces on the southern side of the Evandale site will be used for civic and cultural events such as citizenship ceremonies and Australia Day celebrations.

Councillors yesterday warned that noise from public events could disturb nearby residents.

Area councillor Lex Bell said noise issues would be assessed.

“I think there should be acoustic tests done to protect the amenity of the people on Chevron Island,” he said.

“The architects and officers must address this because noise travels over water and I do not want this to affect people.”

A large screen will also be used for cultural events, as well as part of the Commonwealth Games “live” site where the public can watch events for free.

A “friendship” pedestrian green bridge will also be built connecting Chevron Island to Evandale.

The Bulletin understands the design has been revised from the original proposal.