Nineteen rooms.
Four chapters.
Nothing else.

The pavilions stand on the bank of the Derwent, on the same Berriedale peninsula as the Museum of Old and New Art. They are low, glassy and turned towards the water rather than towards the road. Each one carries the name of an Australian artist or architect, which tells you plainly what the building thinks it is for. The museum below them is cut into the sandstone; the pavilions sit above it and look out.

Water does most of the work here. The Derwent is wide at this point, and the far bank is close enough to read the light on it through the day.

What makes this a first chapter rather than a fifth is the relationship between the rooms and the collection. The pavilions were not added to a museum that already existed as a business. They are part of the same idea, built on the same ground, in the same argument about what art is allowed to do to a visitor. You can walk from the room to the galleries without leaving the site, and the walk is short enough that people do it twice in a day.

Hobart itself is about fifteen minutes away by road. Most people arrive by ferry from the city waterfront, which is the better approach, because it puts the peninsula in front of you the way the buildings were designed to be seen.