Fender Katsalidis Architects designs new MONA hotel

Posted in Future, News on 28 July, 2017

The Museum of Old and New Art has unveiled early designs for a new 172-room hotel designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects, to be located north east of the museum, also designed by Fender Katsalidis Architects, in the Hobart suburb of Berriedale.

The new building, which will be known as HOMO (Hotel at MONA), will also house a spa treatment centre, three-level public library, restaurant and bar, auditorium, conference centre, function and retail spaces and an outdoor stage.

David Walsh, founder of MONA, indicated that, like the museum, some of the spaces would be subterranean. “This time, some may think it’s gotten a little out of hand – the excavation alone is more than four times the size of that for the museum – but we seem to have some support, the plans have turned out pretty well and we can’t rest on our laurels for ever.”

When MONA announced plans to build $200 million worth of projects including a hotel, a casino and an extension to the gallery in 2015, Walsh said the design of the hotel would make a bold statement and ‘shout where MONA whispered’. The MONA casino, nicknamed ‘Monaco’, will be designed by Mexican architect Javier Senosiain. In a statement, MONA said the casino would be a members-only poker-machine-free facility for non-Tasmanians, designed as an ‘anti-casinothat would “act as an outlet for art and design.

Designs for the MONA hotel are yet to be submitted to the local authority, the Glenorchy City Council.

MONA’s co-CEO Mark Wilsdon said: “We want to do all we can to continue to help drive the growth in interstate tourism we’ve experienced since Mona opened in 2011.”