National Museum marks 20 years on the Acton Peninsula

It's a view that many won't be used to when they finally get to see it, emerging from a new stairwell that's part of a major renovation.

When we meet, the museum is a week away from its 20th anniversary (marked on March 11). The view, such as it is, will be born out of new renovations to the exhibition space that are steadily taking place in the Environment Galleries.

In a hard hat and high-vis vest, Trinca - the museum's director - is more than a bit excited about the work being done, part of the museum's master plan that was unveiled in late 2018, involving $266 million worth of works over 12 years.

Amid this $32 million portion of the plan, which includes a new Discovery Centre for kids, the museum is also gearing up for an anniversary concert of specially commissioned pieces, a year's worth of shows and events, and all the pageantry it's possible to muster as the country emerges from the global pandemic.

It could either be the strangest of times to celebrate, or the best of times, depending on your point of view.

"Point of view" being the operative term, as we take in the recently revealed vista, which shows not only the lake but, just across the water, the National Library of Australia. From this angle, the museum feels, for all the world, like part of a precinct, with the library just a hop, skip and jump away.

There was a time, barely a decade ago, that the museum felt remote, removed from Canberra's official cultural precinct in the Parliamentary Triangle, and tucked away on a peninsula - a site borne of controversy and debate. Back then, the museum's director, Trinca's predecessor Andrew Sayers, declined to celebrate the institution's 10th anniversary, citing funding and staffing woes. He opted instead for a low-key morning tea for staff, with no public acknowledgment of the milestone.

At the time, two of his predecessors, Craddock Morton and Dawn Casey, declared this to be a mistake, and said the museum had weathered too much controversy - around its purpose, its location, its cost, its raison d'etre - to ignore such an important milestone.

And despite the atmosphere at the time, they had a point. Both had copped the worst of it as the museum took time finding its feet. Time, location, cost, contents - you name it, politicians and cultural pundits were arguing about it. The strange, bold, idiosyncratic building, designed by architect Howard Raggatt, was a flashpoint for controversy, built in a relatively short time frame after the site was chosen over and above a different, preferred site on Yarramundi Ridge on a different part of the lake.

Funding for the building to house what was already a 20-year-old national historical collection was officially part of the Centenary of Federation celebrations, with Dawn Casey appointed in 1999 to direct the institution. She lasted just five years in the post - only three of them in the building itself - before being ousted by the museum's own board amid whispered accusations she was emphasising what used to be referred to as a "black armband" view of history, and a general disagreement about the role and purpose of the museum itself.

Her successor, career public servant Craddock Morton, would be credited with boosting staff morale and reinvigorating the museum's focus and rigour as an institution. Upon his retirement in 2010, he condemned the useless political infighting that had characterised the museum's early years.

''What would disappoint me would be if we went back to the days when the museum was used as a tool to fight political battles,'' he said at the time. ''I don't think that's the function of a museum, and it treats the museum with disrespect and with a lack of seriousness in relation to what museums are about."

Andrew Sayers was the next director, having steered the National Portrait Gallery into an esteemed institution in a very different knockout building on the other side of the lake. He too inherited a troubled environment, due mainly to a lack of funding and staffing issues. He lasted just three years in the role, retiring early to be with his family in Melbourne, but not before overseeing some of the museum's biggest shows, and defending the place to the hilt as a premier institution.

These days, that pose - the defensiveness against constant low-key harping - seems quaint. It's been years since the museum was the subject of any kind of controversy. In fact, it seems to be getting on quite fine with its main purpose of telling the nation's story through its rich and massive collection, and range of diverse and high-quality exhibitions, as well as hosting top-notch offerings from its UK counterpart, the British Museum.

Trinca, for one, says things couldn't be more different from the era of the anniversary morning tea and the political argy-bargy that never seemed to have anything to do with what was actually happening in the building.

"I think that's past," he says. "Increasingly, the museum has been able to mature and develop the quality of its voice, and draw people in, I suppose, and embrace its public in ways that it was still learning to do in the past. And that's natural - everything new needs some time to settle in."

The building itself has, for most people, become part of the landscape - the lake-scape, so to speak - in a way that seemed unlikely even a decade ago. At first, the bold orange loop, the dramatic angles, the odd-shaped halls and a thousand other details seemed to drive people nuts, rather than drawing them in. But it was Sayers who quipped, early in his directorship, that time was all it needed.

''There's nothing more dated than something from the recent past, so I suspect that it's not going to be too many decades before the loop is a prized part of the Canberra landscape,'' he quipped.

And as the museum, along with the rest of the country and, indeed, the world, emerges from the global pandemic, Trinca sees it as an opportunity to reflect both on the past and the future.

"I think there's a sense of quiet self-belief that the country has that they can get through this, with cautious optimism. And when I think about the museum, coming into its third decade now, since opening, I'm struck by how those sentiments are much the same as what we feel," he says.

"And if you think about this place - at a really fundamental level, it's charged with representing the history of the nation. And its own history, over the last two decades, has kind of paralleled the change in sentiment, the growth in conversation that we've had about what the nation means, and what experience on this continent represents for all of us."

To mark its anniversary, the museum has commissioned guitar impresarios the Grigoryan Brothers to compose a suite of songs based on items in the museum's collection. Aside from two live performances at the museum and a tour, the brothers have also recorded the songs - the first they have ever composed together, even after a significant career playing and touring.

"It's 20 years since the museum opened at this site, and it is time to reflect on that," Trinca says.

"One way or another, we would be marking this. Part of it is celebration, and part of it is reflection on what we've done, where we've been, and where we're going. It's good for any group of people, and it's good for our supporters, for our friends, the people that are members here.

"The broader public needs to know that we're aware it's been 20 years, and I think it's 20 amazing years, really."