Sean Godsell Architects and Kerry Hill Architects are the only remaining Australian firms amongst five shortlisted architectural practices in the second stage of the design competition for the expansion of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The five shortlisted architecture practices in stage two are:

Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA, Tokyo

Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tokyo and Paris

Kerry Hill Architects, Singapore and Perth

RMA Architects (Rahul Mehrotra Architects), Mumbai and Boston

Sean Godsell Architects, Melbourne

The expansion project, ‘Sydney Modern’, is organised to coincide with the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ 150th anniversary in 2021. The project proposes to double the current gallery size of 23,000 square metres, in anticipation of a growing number of Australian and international visitors.

An artist’s impression of the area the expansion will encompass, using the land bridge over the Cahill Expressway

The new building will extend the current gallery northward into parkland area to create new exhibition spaces, a multi-purpose theatre, learning and interactive spaces, a restaurant and café, as well as event spaces. The project, budgeted at $450 million, will create a new cultural precinct joining the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Domain.

In this final stage of competition, the jury will select one architectural practice to work with the gallery and stakeholders to develop a more detailed design. The jury will make its final decision in April 2015.

The Sydney Modern jury members are:

Dr Michael Brand (Chair, director of Art Gallery of New South Wales)

Kathryn Gustafson (Gustafson Guthrie Nichol and Gustafson Porter)

Michael Lynch CBE AM (CEO of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority)

Toshiko Mori (Harvard University Graduate School of Design)

Glenn Murcutt (Pritzker Architecture Prize winner 2002)

Juhani Pallasmaa (professor emeritus and widely published writer)

Hetti Perkins (Member of the Eastern Arrernte and Kalkadoon Aboriginal communities and curator, filmmaker and author).