Entrance moved as new Powerhouse Ultimo plans revealed

The Powerhouse Museum’s main entrance will be swung around to front Darling Harbour and Chinatown as part of the winning design for its $500 million refurbishment.

A new public square, rooftop gardens and multi-storey annex running the length of Harris Street across its now bare forecourt is included in the refurbishment.

The winning design and the new extension along Harris Street.

The museum’s 1988-built arched atrium extension to the heritage-listed buildings of the Ultimo Power Station and the old post office, known as the Wran Building, is to be demolished.

It currently forms its public entrance and houses its temporary exhibition space.

It will be replaced by a four-storey building with street-level access to a library and archives, and upstairs accommodation for 60 school children with options to sleep under the stars in a rooftop garden.

At the building’s rear will be an expanded public park next to the old Ultimo post office.

The museum’s new entrance will be reoriented to the Goods Line with a large public square planted out with native species and an event space for museum programs.

The Wran Building completed in 1988 for the Bicentenary. A public garden will be built behind the post office.Credit: Brook Mitchell

The concept is the work of Architectus, Durbach Block Jaggers Architects, Tyrrell Studio, Youssofzay + Hart, Finding Infinity and Arup who were “unanimously” selected from a shortlist of five architectural teams to reimagine the museum’s city home.

They will be partnered by iconic fashion designer Akira Isogawa, whose fashion features in the Powerhouse collection, and the Indigenous design start-up Yerrabingin.

Their design was inspired by local cultural topography, with the new multi-storey addition leaning away from heritage-listed buildings to resemble an escarpment.

No longer would the Powerhouse Museum turn its back on Harris Street and Ultimo, chief executive Lisa Havilah said.

Iconic objects from the Powerhouse collection including the Boulton and Watt engine, Locomotive No. 1 and the Catalina flying boat will be presented in the renewed Powerhouse Ultimo, Havilah said, along with other large objects from its collection.

Jury chair Wendy Lewin said the winning proposal called for a “family of strong masonry buildings” of a scale and materiality that respected heritage and responded sensitively to the Ultimo surrounds.

“The winning scheme is underpinned by a compelling and coherent vision for the renewal of the Powerhouse Ultimo site and the broader precinct,” she said.

“The design approach centres on making subtle moves appropriate to the site – at times via gentle intervention and repair, at others through ambitious moves that enable the site to be ‘unlocked’ to provide a distinctive and highly functional museum experience.”

An interior courtyard of the new Powerhouse Museum.

Former Powerhouse Trustee, Kylie Winkworth, said the government seemed “hell-bent” on rewarding failure, with visitor numbers to the Powerhouse Museum in 2021-22 at a 20-year low.

“So now the expenditure of $500m to demolish a Sulman award-winning museum that is just 34 years old is to fix the lowest visitor numbers since 1960,” she said. “It used to be that museums had to prove their appeal and competent management before they got any whiff of taxpayer funding.”

Architect of the 1988 Powerhouse adaption, Lionel Glendenning, derided the new annex as a “Star Wars sandcrawler” come to a standstill.

The overbearing rectangular building with its notched slots was an attempt to overcome the fundamental gross flaw of excessive scale, height and volume on Harris Street, he said.

Last year, the Perrottet Government committed up to $500 million to the makeover, the first major investment in the museum since 1988.

Following today’s announcement, the winning architects will develop their concept plans and a detailed development application is expected to go out for public submissions early next year. Construction is expected to start December 2023, closing the museum for up to two years depending on the final design.

Collection items currently on exhibition in Ultimo will be taken to international standard collection storage facilities.

In all, there will be six museum exhibition spaces that will present a changing applied arts and applied sciences program, Arts Minister Ben Franklin said.

These museum exhibition spaces will include the Boiler and Turbine Halls. The Powerhouse Museum said the renewed museum would offer more than 17,000 square metres in exhibition and public space.

In addition, the new design included 1500 square metres in learning and community space and 5000 square metres of space for museum programming, community use and civic events. Importantly, the design is said to centralise circulation to create a more cohesive museum experience.

The Powerhouse’s main public square looking back from Good’s Line and planted with native species.

“I am particularly excited about the new Powerhouse Academy, which will offer a rooftop camp for secondary and tertiary students from regional NSW and beyond, providing an immersive learning experience in the heart of the city,” Franklin said.

“This will provide a range of new opportunities for young people right across the state to engage with and explore the Powerhouse Ultimo’s internationally renowned exhibitions.”

It’s hoped the redevelopment will arrest a decline in visitation, now at 20-year lows.

Architectus and the engineering firm Arup worked alongside the Japanese design team SANAA on Sydney Modern, the new wing of the Art Gallery of NSW which drew 86,000 visitors in its opening week.

The “ridgeline” of the museum’s new development.

A shortlist of five Australian teams was invited to develop a detailed redesign for the museum’s home, which opened 34 years ago for Australia’s bicentenary.

Concept plans for the museum’s 2.4-hectare site, which went out for public comment earlier this year, had been opposed by the vast majority of submissions, which complained the museum was being turned into a glorified function entertainment centre.

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