‘Heavier and dark': Powerhouse Museum rebuild accused of trashing heritage significance
The City of Sydney also objected to the planned 'total destruction and rebuilding' of the 1988-built Wran Building and bricking up of the museum's light-filled galleria.
It warned the new museum would open with far less exhibition space – a loss of 1000sqm, about the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool – and result in a 'heavier and darker' experience inside.
'The resulting building must now be considered – especially for the cost that will be outlaid – a compromised work of architecture, based as it is on recreating a series of shapes, rather than being based on museum functionality and display,' the National Trust's conservation director David Burdon said.
'It is not a good heritage outcome.'
The state government appointed construction giant Richard Crookes in July to revamp the museum, which has been closed since February 2024.
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Staircases, internal walls and mezzanines will be stripped out within the heritage-listed Boiler House, Engine House, Power House and Turbine Hall, new commercial creative studios built along Harris Street next to a 'cloister garden' on the bare forecourt, and a new entrance oriented to the Haymarket-facing Goods Line.
On late advice from builders, and contrary to commitments Town Hall said it received, Infrastructure NSW now wants to replace the steel-ribbed structure forming the museum's specially built galleria that has long served as its entrance and display hall for the Locomotive No.1 and Boulton & Watt steam engine, priceless relics of the industrial age.
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