Home Truth at NGV International

Thu 12th December, 2024 – Sun 27th April, 2025
Ground Level, NGV Garden, NGV International, Ground Level, NGV Garden, NGV International
Melbourne-based architecture and design studio Breathe envisions an alternative way of building homes for the 2024 NGV Architecture Commission.

Each year, the National Gallery of Victoria invites Australian architects and designers to create a temporary, site-specific work in its sprawling Grollo Equiset Garden. Last year marked the ninth iteration of the commission, which Melbourne architecture and design studio Breathe won with a work titled Home Truth.

Home Truth is an installation designed to encourage meaningful reflection on how small-scale architecture might bring about more sustainable, higher-quality and community-focused living environments. With the average new detached Australian home 236 square metres in size (well ahead of the US, the UK, France and Canada), Home Truth questions the legitimacy and impact of the so-called “Australian dream” – and the ethical and ecological effects of our insatiable appetite for oversized homes.

On the outside, the installation takes the form of a house frame, representing the generous silhouette of the average Australian home. Step inside and you’ll find a quieter, more reflective timber structure nested within, showing the footprint of a more modestly sized home that many will find just as livable (if not more so). By drawing attention to these contrasting sizes, Home Truth positions itself not as a far-fetched vision of the future, but as a return to more thoughtful scales of living that keep the needs of the planet front of mind.

Home Truth is free to visit and open until Sunday April 27.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of the National Gallery of Victoria.

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