Cultural Centre

Blue Mountains Cultural Centre

The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre comprises the City Art Gallery, the World Heritage Interpetive Centre, theatrette/seminar room, workshop space.
(see podium level plan below)
The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, housing the City’s Art Gallery and the World Heritage Interpretive Centre was endorsed by Council in June 1998. The TAFE East site in the Katoomba CBD was confirmed as the location for the Centre at the Katoomba Charrette consultations. The State Government was willing to hold its sale so that the Cultural Centre could be a part of the mixed use development. Council undertook further extensive consultation with the community and visitors during 1999 resulting in an initial funding commitment from the State Government of $4.8m toward the establishment of the Cultural Centre as a cultural hub for the Blue Mountains. Council and the State Government considered a number of options and negotiated with the preferred developer over a number of years to achieve the Cultural Centre project. In 2004 Council included the development of a new Katoomba Library and allocated capital funds toward the project. The Option Deed between the parties (the NSW government, Council and the (now) Coles Group) was signed in December 2005. The reclassification and rezoning of the site was gazetted in May 2006. This signalled the project commencement. The initial design concepts were further evolved during 1996 incorporating community feedback. The developed design and costings agreement phase has been completed and the developer submitted the DA in August 2007.

PodiumLevelPlan.pdf (111kb)

City Art Gallery

The Blue Mountains will have a 600m2 purpose designed City Art Gallery exhibition space hosting high quality local, and touring exhibitions as well as associated spaces to present a range of public programs attracting a diversity of exhibitions and therefore a diversity of audiences and repeat visits.

The Gallery will provide outreach and education programs for local and visiting schools and tertiary students, and in conjunction with the World Heritage Interpretive Centre and the Theatrette, will offer an educational hub for the region to foster appreciation of our art, cultural heritage and history, and our World Heritage environment.

It will house a multipurpose workshop facility for these education and art programs, a meeting space, Gallery Shop, and a theatrette/seminar space for workshops and forums.

The Foyer and Gallery Shop will also accommodate cultural information about the region so that both residents and visitors can sample the Blue Mountains cultural experience and get information about other activities, cultural venues and attractions throughout the mountains. There will be opportunities for functions, seminars and training programs.

World Heritage Interpretive Centre

The World Heritage Interpretive Centre will accommodate exhibitions that celebrate and interpret our distinctive World Heritage Natural Environment, our history and our culture.

This major interpretive facility provides the opportunity to integrate indigenous environmental and social historical input and display. It will allow for the utilisation of pod casts and multilingual information using interactive technologies and incorporating state of the art audio visual and multimedia presentations.

Flexibility and refreshibility is a key criterion. The base material of the exhibition will be designed in order for curatorial staff to offer new interpretations and challenging juxtapositions in order to stimulate and promote repeat visitation.

From September to December 2009, Freeman Ryan Design and Blue Mountains City Council will be gathering information to assist in getting information and stories for the exhibition.

If you would like to contribute and share your stories, please download and complete the registration form below, or contact Simon Ambrose, Director Blue Mountains Cultural Centre by email at sambrose@bmcc.nsw.gov.au or phone (02) 4780 5510.

(1)WorldHeritageInterpretiveCentreForm.pdf (12kb)