Over the years, I’ve returned time and again to the TarraWarra Museum of Art. Perched above a sculpted lawn, Allan Powell’s original museum building has long impressed itself into my memory — a massive, blank façade that once struck me as forbidding. Defensive, even. A castle on a hill. But with time, what once felt imposing now reads as protective. Familiar. The same wall that once challenged me now welcomes me, shields me. It’s a shift that speaks less to the building than to my own evolving perspective.
The original 2003 design brought together a museum and restaurant, linked by a courtyard that still feels monolithic and primal. Concrete forms rise from the earth like a modern-day stonehenge — assertive, ambiguous, and sculptural. That in-between space is not transitional but atmospheric. It announces that art, here, is something you move toward with intent.
The recently opened Eva and Marc Besen Centre, designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects, extends the experience with humility and quiet strength. Set behind the Powell building, it gently follows the existing crescent avenue — a gesture of deference and dialogue. The echo in form is deliberate, yet the contrast in materiality is striking: where Powell’s original wall is heavy and massive, Thompson’s new elevation is light, woven, and permeable. A stainless steel mesh softens the back-of-house functions, providing glimpses of the life within while maintaining a measured restraint.
The Besen Centre houses visible art storage, learning spaces, and areas for performance and community engagement. It literally supports the museum — its green roof doubling as the visitor carpark — and symbolically reinforces the museum’s foundational ethos: that art, education, and landscape can exist in quiet, enduring harmony.
The museum’s collection, gifted by Eva and Marc Besen, contains hundreds of works of Australian modern and contemporary art. But more than just a collection, it’s a gesture of cultural trust — a belief in the value of public access to art, and the importance of creating an architectural context that honours it.
Revisiting TarraWarra with the addition of the new centre felt like a jolt of clarity — a reminder of the power of restraint, and the joy that comes from resolution. Durable materials. Controlled views. A reverence for sequence. And above all, a deep understanding that architecture, like art, shifts meaningfully over time.