Spring has certainly sprung in the national capital and the weather is glorious.
This weekend Tom and I went over to Lake Burley Griffin where we walked along the promenade and were delighted by this couple of black swans with their cygnets. We then went to see a very interesting exhibition contrasting east and west German architecture post-WWII at the Gallery of Australian Design. It was full of fascinating photos, plans and models and highlighted the similar approaches taken in both of the then nations to housing as well as commercial, leisure, cultural, civic and other public architecture and town planning.
We then walked over to have a look at the much anticipated, much delayed and now just newly opened National Gallery 'front door' and Indigenous art galleries. I must say I'm not quite sure how sympathetic the additions to the building are from the outside (you can judge for yourself from the pictures - don't you think all that glass somehow cheapens the uncompromising concrete brutality of the original?), but there is no question that the interior improvements are fantastic - several, huge new Indigenous art galleries, a much better shop, a more lobby-like entrance space. Overall, I think it is a big improvement - from the inside. I do however loathe their hideous 'new' retro '80s NGA logo - it's cheap and vile.
After a browse in the Portrait Gallery bookshop across the road (absurdly small and poky - was it an afterthought?), and some tut-tutting about the disgraceful state of disrepair of the outdoor spaces around the shamefully neglected High Court, we drove over to Yarralumla Nursery to buy some plants for the garden.
