After 11 years of planning, three years of construction, two parliamentary inquiries, four NSW premiers and a bill of $1 billion, Powerhouse Parramatta, the city’s newest cultural landmark, has opened to the public, with the NSW government declaring the museum Sydney’s answer to The Smithsonian and London’s British Museum.
The vertiginous Moreau Kusonski and Genton-designed building with its striking criss-crossing exoskeleton drew a wave of excitement and wonderment from a crush of curious visitors, some of the 20,000 people who were expected to cross the threshold in its opening weekend to be part of history.
Without exception, visitors were taken aback by the ambition of the marquee opening exhibition: Task Eternal, exploring space and flight in four chapters.
Queues were longest in the museum’s only dedicated children’s show, The Dark, with its meteor tunnel, night forest and spaceship, for Es Devlin’s The Turning which has timed entr y . The only slight grizzle at The Dark was that phones had to be placed out of sight in a sealed pouch to encourage sensory engagement.
Delighted children paddled bare-footed in the shallow pond of the Indigenous show, Overflow, while panoramic views from the CBD to the Blue Mountains through the soaring glass windows drew onlookers and selfies. Most visitors said they would be back.
It was former premier Mike Baird who announced bombshell plans to relocate the Powerhouse in the state’s most populous region weeks out from the 2015 election.
But it was Labor Premier Chris Minns who cut the ribbon on the monumental project – after a Coalition backflip on closure of its Ultimo home – with help from 18 visiting students of Menindee Central School, the museum’s first overnighting students.
Minns declared the museum “open for business” shortly after 10am, later admitting that Labor’s historic opposition to the project had been “wrong” and the museum would be “city shaping”.
“I think it’s important that I acknowledge that at different points over the last few years, when we were in opposition, we were sceptical about this project. We wanted a cultural institution in western Sydney, but we did criticise this project. We were wrong. This is fantastic. This is going to be great for western Sydney. It’s going to be great for NSW.”
Arts minister John Graham acknowledged the role of the museum’s absent chief executive – Lisa Havilah, who was stood down 72 days ago pending the outcome of a formal misconduct investigation – prompting cheers from members of the audience. Appointed in 2019 and a critical force in the building’s design, fitout and shows, Havilah was not invited to the event.
“There’s an investigation taking place, and we need to make sure that’s done,” Minns later said. “But I think that you can do two things at the same time. You can pay tribute to the enormous work that Lisa and others have put into the institution while respecting the need for an independent investigation.”
Asked if the inquiry would be resolved quickly, Graham said: “One of the issues with that process is people have got a right to be able to contribute more material and ask for more time. We will not short-circuit that process.”
The museum is staging five shows, all of which are free except for Task Eternal, where visitors aged over 16 pay $30. Accessing James Turrell’s Shangri La (Over the Hump) within that exhibition will cost an additional $10.
After weeks of prevarication, the museum’s open hours for exhibition shows from November 30 were confirmed as 10am to 5pm, with Friday late entry, a retreat on original plans to run the Powerhouse as a 24-hour museum, with nightly events, overnight stays and apartments for visiting artists and scientists.
The opening of 30 serviced apartments built on the top floor of the Powerhouse Parramatta and fitted out at a cost of more than $3 million has been delayed. These are to cater for visiting artists and scientists, but the logistics and management remains under review. Powerhouse says it has secured 18 contracted bookings for its commercial spaces, through to June 2027, from business, industry, cultural and government organisations.
The announcement on the museum’s opening hours raises questions about the size of the workforce required now that the museum will be brought in line with all other cultural institutions.
Minns committed to funding the museum’s operations sufficiently to enable it to live up to its potential. “It’s not cheap, and it does cost taxpayer money, but we believe this is an investment in the future. The fixed costs of this beautiful building mean that you’ve got to have world-class exhibitions inside their halls.”
Powerhouse Trust president David Borger lobbied for western Sydney’s first state significant cultural institution. “As a young bloke growing up in Parramatta I walked past this site … on my way to school. There was a car park here. It was the ugliest building on the Parramatta River, and never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that we’d actually have this magnificent cultural institution built. We haven’t done anything like this, frankly, since the Opera House. But there’s a new house in town.”
The unfurling of a banner declaring the Powerhouse “not a museum” and “vale Willow Grove” alluded to two of the many controversies which have embroiled the project – the demolition of historic building Willow Grove, which made way for the redevelopment, and ongoing controversy over its remit and treatment of its priceless collection.
Long-time heritage advocate Suzette Meade said she was not surprised by the action given the street protests in 2021 and the extent of feeling. “Five years after the demolition of Willow Grove, the community’s blood still boils over this project. The NSW government underestimated the damage it caused, the disrespect it showed and how deeply it disenfranchised the people of Parramatta. We will never forget.”
The day began with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony, kicked off by a Welcome to Country, with seven of the eight children who were present for the 2019 groundbreaking ceremony attending as young adults. The proceedings were watched by some of the museum’s youngest collaborators, Thoedore Bui, Jason Cilia and Tyler Pham Luu, all aged four, who donated toys to the museum’s dedicated children’s show, The Dark .
Following the Australian Museum opening in 1827, major state arts spending had remained clustered east of Sydney Olympic Park, and this project marks a reshaping of Parramatta and a less CBD-centric arts scene.
For arts advocate John Kirkman, who was on the advisory committee that had lobbied for funding equity in western Sydney, the Powerhouse stands alongside the Sydney Opera House as an institutional project that is both controversial and transformative.
“I take a broader view on these massive cultural developments,” he says. “They are rare, transformative, and signal something profoundly positive about cultural production and public investment. A Sydney without the Opera House is inconceivable today – it delivered far more than anyone anticipated at the time. This is that same kind of moment.”
For Kirkman, the investment holds generational weight. “Growing up in Granville, I lived in a fibro house with no books and no art, but I loved the idea of a museum,” he recalls. “I used to take the train to the Powerhouse at Ultimo and spend the day there. It was amazing because it was so far removed from my immediate world. This new institution has the power to open up the world to so many young people in that exact same way.”
Students more than 1000 kilometres away from Sydney will be the first to be able to sleep over at the Parramatta Powerhouse.
Few expect Lisa Havilah will return to the Powerhouse Parramatta as it gets its big day out.
The opening of the Powerhouse Parramatta marks a significant moment in western Sydney’s history. Here’s how to make the most of it.
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