Architectureat Heide

The architecture of Heide Museum of Modern Art reflects the site’s transformation from a rural homestead to the public art museum it is today.

The first residence of John and Sunday Reed at Heide was a distinctive weatherboard farmhouse which they renovated in the French provincial style. Known today as the Heide Cottage, this was home to the Reeds for thirty-five years and is the place where Sidney Nolan’s Kelly series was painted; where the Angry Penguins Ern Malley poems were argued as being authentic or spurious; where Albert Tucker and Joy Hester lived for a time; and where many creatives enjoyed the plentiful produce from the Heide kitchen garden and dairy.

Amassing an outstanding collection of contemporary art, the Reeds outgrew the Heide Cottage and in 1963 commissioned David McGlashan of the architecture firm McGlashan and Everist to plan and construct a new home in the modernist style. Their brief was that the building should be romantic, have a sense of mystery and weather over time to take on the appearance of a ruin in the landscape. They also desired a ‘gallery to be lived in’, intending that this building should one day be transformed into a public art gallery.

Since the establishment of Heide as a public museum and garden in 1981, the site has expanded to include the Sidney Myer Education Centre, an elegant glass pavilion café and the Heide main galleries, a purpose built museum space, whose black titanium zinc facade strikingly contrasts with the white limestone of Heide Modern, while echoing the earlier building’s modernist spirit.