Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum, also known as the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, is a collection of four museums in Sydney, owned by the Government of New South Wales. It is a contemporary museum of applied arts and sciences, exploring the intersections of design, innovation, science, and technology. Founded in 1879 as part of the Sydney International Exhibition, the institution is one of Australia's oldest continuously operating museums.
The Powerhouse Museum operates across four sites in Sydney: Powerhouse Ultimo, Powerhouse Parramatta, Powerhouse Castle Hill and Sydney Observatory.
Powerhouse Ultimo, the museum's home since 1988, is currently closed for major revitalisation. Powerhouse Parramatta, opening in 2026, will be the largest museum in the state of New South Wales. Powerhouse Castle Hill serves as the principal collection store and research centre, while Sydney Observatory continues to offer astronomy programs from its heritage-listed site at Observatory Hill.
Although often described as a science museum, Powerhouse holds one of Australia's most significant and diverse museum collections, spanning over 500,000 objects across design, applied arts, science, and technology. Key areas include including decorative arts, science, communication, transport, costume, furniture, media, computer technology, space technology and steam engines.
Its collection and public presence have evolved across several key sites over time—from the Garden Palace in the Botanic Gardens, to the Agricultural Hall in the Domain, Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum of New South Wales, the Technological Museum on Harris Street, and eventually into the Powerhouse Ultimo, housed in the former Ultimo Power Station from 1988.
Much of the collection is stored and researched at Powerhouse Castle Hill, a publicly accessible facility open on weekends. Since 2019, Powerhouse has undertaken one of the largest museum digitisation projects in the world, making its vast collection more accessible through millions of high-resolution object photographs available online. This effort is extended through projects like Sounding the Collection, which captures the unique sounds of selected objects, offering new sensory ways to experience the collection.
Powerhouse Parramatta
Powerhouse Parramatta is currently under construction along the Parramatta River, is set to become the largest museum in New South Wales upon its anticipated opening in late 2026. The facility will feature over 18,000 square meters of exhibition and public space, including a 600-seat theatre, rooftop garden with telescopes, demonstration kitchen, and seven column-free exhibition spaces. Designed by Moreau Kusunoki and Genton, the project represents the most significant cultural infrastructure investment in NSW since the Sydney Opera House.Powerhouse Ultimo
Powerhouse Ultimo, housed in a repurposed 1902 electric tram power station, has served as the museum's primary venue since its opening in 1988. In recent years, Powerhouse Ultimo has consistently ranked among the most visited museums in Oceania.Powerhouse Ultimo building, designed by Lionel Glendenning for the Australian Bicentenary in 1988, won the Sir John Sulman Medal for architecture. It includes a specially installed reticulated steam system, run from the old boiler house, to drive the large, rare steam machines in its collection. The statement of significance for the Federation building says the Powerhouse played a "major part in the 20th-century development of the Ultimo/Pyrmont area and in the wider heritage conservation movement in NSW." and it was part of the Darling Harbour Bicentennial citywide adaptation project, incorporated into "the transition of a major industrial location to a cultural, educational and tourism precinct".
As of February 2024, the site is temporarily closed for a major heritage revitalisation project, with completion anticipated in 2027. The $300 million redevelopment aims to enhance exhibition spaces, improve visitor accessibility, and preserve the site's historical architecture. Key features include a new public square, a reoriented main entrance facing The Goods Line, and upgraded facilities to support expanded programming and international exhibitions.
Powerhouse Castle Hill
Powerhouse Castle Hill, formerly known as the Museums Discovery Centre, serves as the principal collection storage and research facility for the Powerhouse Museum. Housing over 500,000 objects, it plays a pivotal role in the preservation and accessibility of the museum's extensive collection. The site operates in partnership with the Australian Museum and Museums of History New South Wales, reflecting a collaborative approach to shared storage, research, and public engagement.The facility includes seven buildings dedicated to storage, conservation, and display, accommodating a diverse range of objects - from Eddie Mabo's shirt to Locomotive No. 1. Open to the public on weekends, Powerhouse Castle Hill offers behind-the-scenes access to one of Australia's most comprehensive museum collections, showcasing objects not currently on display at other Powerhouse sites. The site also supports the museum's specialist practices—including conservation, digitisation, logistics, registration, and research—highlighting the complex work of collection care and access.
From late 2004, 60 percent of the collection was moved to a new site in the northwestern Sydney suburb of Castle Hill. Built at a cost of, this facility consists of seven huge sheds, including one the size of an aircraft hangar, within which are housed artefacts as a section of the mast of, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the spare wheel from Bluebird-Proteus CN7, the car Donald Campbell drove to break the world land speed record on Lake Eyre in the 1960s.
Powerhouse Castle Hill underwent a major $44 million expansion between 2018 and 2023, designed by Lahznimmo Architects. The 9,000 m² addition increased storage by 30% and introduced new facilities for conservation, digitisation, research, and public programs. A standout feature is the "visible store" — a glazed façade offering views into the Very Large Object store, which houses planes, trains, and industrial machinery.
The project received the 2024 Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Architecture and was also shortlisted for a 2024 Dezeen Awards, recognising its integration of public access, preservation, and design excellence.
Sydney Observatory
Since 1982, Sydney Observatory has operated under the stewardship of the Powerhouse Museum, transitioning into a museum and public observatory.Located atop Observatory Hill in Millers Point, is a heritage-listed site and an integral part of the Powerhouse Museum. Established in 1858, it has been a cornerstone of Australia's scientific history, originally serving as a timekeeping and astronomical research facility. The Observatory was instrumental in navigation, meteorology, and the study of the southern skies.
History
The Powerhouse Museum has its origins in a recommendation of the trustees of the Australian Museum in 1878 and the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879 and Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880. The Sydney International Exhibition was held in the Garden Palace, a purpose-built exhibition building located in the grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the Australian Museum appointed a committee to select the best exhibits with the intention of exhibiting them permanently in a new museum to be sited within the Garden Palace. The new museum was to be called The Technological, Industrial, and Sanitary Museum of New South Wales; its purpose was to exhibit the latest industrial, construction and design innovations with the intention of showing how improvements in the living standards and health of the population might be brought about.In September 1882, before the new museum could be opened a fire completely destroyed the Garden Palace, leaving the museum's first curator, Joseph Henry Maiden with a collection consisting of only the most durable artefacts including a Ceylonese statue of an elephant carved in graphite that had miraculously survived the blaze despite a 5-storey plunge.
Maiden commenced rebuilding the collection, but for the subsequent decade the new museum found itself housed in a large tin shed in The Domain, a facility it shared with the Sydney Hospital morgue. The ever-present stench of decaying corpses was not the best advertisement for an institution dedicated to the promotion of sanitation. Eventually, after lobbying, the museum was relocated to a three-storey building; a temporary home at the Agricultural Hall in the Domain, a new, purpose-built premises in Harris Street, Ultimo and was given a new name: the "Technological Museum".
The new location placed the museum adjacent to the Sydney Technical College, and as such it was intended to provide material inspiration to the students. As time passed, its name was changed to The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and it also established branches in some of New South Wales' main industrial and mining centres, including Broken Hill, Albury, Newcastle and Maitland. It also quickly outgrew the main Harris Street site and by 1978 the situation had become dire, with many exhibits literally stuffed into its attic, and left unexhibited for decades.
On 23 August 1978, Premier Neville Wran announced that the decrepit Ultimo Power Station, several hundred metres north of the Harris Street site had been earmarked as the museum's new permanent home along with the adjoining former Ultimo Tram Depot. The museum spent an interim period exhibiting as the Powerhouse Museum – Stage One in the nearby tram sheds before re-opening as the Powerhouse Museum at the new site on 10 March 1988. The main museum building contains five levels, three courtyards and a cafeteria, as well as some offices. Workshops, library, storage and additional office space is located in the annexed tram sheds.
The Powerhouse Ultimo made it possible to rehabilitate hundreds of treasures stored at Alexandria and "exhibit them for the first time in almost a century". In 1982, the museum incorporated the Sydney Observatory. The museum moved to 500 Harris Street in March 1988, and took its new name from the new location.
Following its closure as a working observatory in 1982, Sydney Observatory was incorporated into the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, as the museum was still formally known, though from 1988 this name was no longer used in marketing materials in favour of the Powerhouse Museum brand.