Monument to anti-monumentality: the space of the National Museum Australia

Abstract

This article explores the space of the National Museum Australia as a complex interplay between different spatial levels, and the way in which this interplay enables the NMA to foreground internal tensions architecturally. I am also interested in the way these internal tensions contribute towards creating representations of spaces as politically charged. I argue that the space of the NMA should be read as riven with tension between monumental space and what I refer to as protean monumental space. The tension between the monumental and the protean monumental is always already entailed within the spatial practice and spatial representation of producing the NMA’s space. This tension is internal and central to the museum itself, yet it is a tension that leads to a production of a ‘third space’ that is already predicated by the other two, or is revealed by the experiencing body of the museum visitor.