Campaign to Save the Powerhouse
Responsibility for facts stated is taken by Tom Lockley,
PO Box 301, Pyrmont
0403 615 134 tomlockley@gmail.com
Bulletin 61: Response to Bulletin 60
from Ms Havilah
I sent out Bulletin 60
(attached) on 21 March. Ms Havilah was not happy, and
emailed me saying that she was preparing a response. I replied and said that I
would circulate her response as soon as possible. I include the relevant email
exchange between me and Ms Havilah. I have only had about two hours to prepare
this bulletin – please look at my notes that follow Ms Havilah’s response.
Here it is:
RESPONSE TO: TOM LOCKLEY
BULLETIN 60
PREPARED BY: LISA HAVILAH,
POWERHOUSE MUSEUM
DATE: 28 MARCH
2021 (received by email 10.16 today, 29 March 2021)
The Museum warmly welcomed the NSW Government’s
announcement on July 4, 2020 to retain and renew the Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo.
Since the announcement the Powerhouse Museum with
Create Infrastructure is undertaking a range of work to ensure that the museum
is renewed in a way that respects and reinvigorates its exhibitions, its
architecture and its history. To inform the renewal process, two key dialogue
groups have been established and a number of meetings were held across 2020:-
Masterplanning Dialogue
The purpose of the Masterplanning dialogue is to
ensure the architectural legacy and integrity of the built form is considered
in its renewal. The workshops have included sharing the original design
intentions of the museum, presenting and workshopping masterplanning
ideas and considering the renewal in relationship to adjacent precincts and
developments. The group includes architects Lionel Glendenning, Andrew
Andersons, John Wardle, Abbie Galvin and Peter Poulet alongside key
stakeholders, Create Infrastructure and Powerhouse Museum staff.
Curatorial Dialogue
The purpose of the Curatorial Dialogue is to support
collaboration between the museum’s current curatorial team and previous staff
and stakeholders to ensure a coherency of curatorial approach in the Powerhouse
Museum Ultimo renewal. The workshops have included presenting ideas and
concepts for exhibition development, the importance of the overall 1988
exhibition concepts and Collection development opportunities. The group
includes previous staff and Trustees; Jennifer Sanders; Dr Ann Stephen, Senior
Curator Art, The University of Sydney; Professor Shirley Alexander, Deputy Vice
Chancellor, University of Technology Sydney; Janet McDonald; Andrew Grant; Debbie
Rudder; Dr Kimberly Webber; Grace Cochrane and Create Infrastructure and
Powerhouse Museum staff.
Alongside the dialogues, Powerhouse Museum, Architect
Lionel Glendenning has kindly agreed to work with renowned heritage architect,
Alan Croker to embed his design principles into the Conservation Management
Plan that is being developed. Once Lionel has completed this work, the
Masterplanning Dialogues will continue across 2021. The Museum is excited that
Lionel has also agreed to undertake an oral history project with Alan that will
give the Museum even more information to protect and promote this important
history.
At the end of last year the
Museum announced its 2021 exhibition program. Across the year, 12 new
exhibitions will open, featuring the Museum’s collections and focusing on
providing access to never seen before objects and their stories. Last week we
launched Iranzamin which presents objects from the Museum’s significant Persian
collections. The Museum has had a huge community response with many hundreds of
people visiting to experience the exhibition and celebrate Persian New Year.
These important temporary exhibitions support and
enhance the overall experience of the Museum that is innately connected to its
foundational permanent exhibitions. Our 2021 program is born of solid
curatorial research undertaken in partnership with community, industry and the tertiary sector. Sometimes people lament
not being able to see a much-loved object but very many people also long to see
something new. We always balance both of these needs.
REVITALISATION IS
UNDERWAY ACROSS THE POWERHOUSE MUSEUM
LEVEL 1 - WIGGLES
The Museum is excited to have reopened the Wiggles
exhibition to celebrate their 30th Anniversary. The Curatorial
and Collections Team worked to make adjustments to
this high touch exhibition to ensure that is COVID safe. We have had a huge
response from the community and the exhibition is booked out until the end of
April.
LEVEL 1 - EXPERIMENTATIONS
Last year as a result of
COVID the Museum had to close the Experimentations Gallery. During this time the Curatorial and Collections Team have undertaken
adjustments to ensure that this high-touch exhibition is safe and accessible.
We are looking forward to reopening the much-loved Experimentations Gallery in
May 2021.
LEVEL 1 – FLOOR RESTORATION
We are excited to be working with Trevor Waters who
has extensive experience working on the conservation of prestigious and iconic
buildings in Sydney including the Sydney Opera House to renew the concrete
floor surfaces of level 1. As you would be aware the original 1988 carpet was
in a state of significant disrepair. The carpet in these high traffic areas had
reached end of life, wearing through and was an occupational health and safety
issue for our visitors. Trevor is consulting closely with heritage architect
Alan Croker to ensure that we are protecting and enhancing the design integrity
of the Museum.
LEVEL 1 – TRANSPORT, FLIGHT AND SPACE
The museum will be presenting a new transport
exhibition in the Transport Hall. This exhibition, Microcars will feature
microcars from the Powerhouse Collection, and a selection of loans from notable
Australian collectors. It will also examine contemporary electric and hybrid
microcars such as the Renault Twizzy and the Smartcar.
We have had the opportunity to present this exhibition
through the requirement to remove the 1988 display cabinets within the
Transport Hall. The cabinets were found to no longer meet fire safety standards
and were deemed as non-compliant. The viewing platform above the plinths was
also an accessibility issue as it could only be accessed via the stairs.
All work undertaken across the museum is led by our
professional conservators and curators to ensure the care and
safety of our Collection at all times. The museum is committed to
ensuring the exhibition furniture is reused and that we are meeting our
sustainability principles. Other than the removal of the showcases and the
creation of Microcars no further work is planned for the Transport Hall.
LEVEL 1 – TURBINE HALL
The restoration floor works across Level 1 have nearly
been completed in preparation for the installation of a major new exhibition,
Clay Dynasty. The exhibition will feature over 400 objects from the Museum’s
significant ceramics collection and tell the story of Australian studio ceramics
over the last 50 years. The majority of the objects
from the Collection in this exhibition have never been publicly shown before.
LEVEL 1 – MARS YARD
Mars Yard was a temporary exhibition that was no
longer providing the platform for learning activities that it once had. It
ceased to be effective as a learning tool when the research funding for the
project finished in 2015. At this time the Australian Centre for Field Robotics
from Sydney University ended.their engagement with the
project. It has never been used for an MSC course in Robotics from UNSW. The
Museum has multiple partnerships across industry and the university sector to
develop new exhibitions and education experiences connecting young people to
STEM.
LEVEL 1 - ECOLOGIC
Ecologic is a temporary exhibition that was last
refurbished over a decade ago. The majority of the
material in this exhibition is out of date and the museum received many
complaints about how dated the exhibition was. The Museum is developing a new
climate change exhibition called 100 Conversations which will bring together
leading Australians that are innovating to address our climate challenge across
the fields of traditional knowledge, marine ecology, landscape architecture,
environmental engineering and climate law. The exhibition
will run for 100 weeks beginning in June 2021 and finishing in June 2023.
STEAM REVOLUTION
There are no plans to make any changes in the Steam
Revolution Gallery. The Curatorial Team believe that in the future updates will
be required to this exhibition to provide further context and include the
social issues of the day alongside communicating the environmental impacts that
the Industrial Revolution continues to have.
The renewal of the Powerhouse Museum marks a return to
its commitment to telling stories through the presentation of its vast and
diverse collections. Its renewal is also a strong step towards supporting
specialisation across the curatorial team and expanding the scale of the
conservation team. Through this new direction the Powerhouse Museum will
increase its commitment to social history, reconnect in new ways with its
regional partners and re-engage with the principles of programs that have had
great success namely the Migration Heritage Centre. We are only successful in
our renewal if we value and carry forward the legacy of the work of those who
went before us.
(end of Ms Havilah’s
comments).
I was delighted to get a
response to my comments. As all people that object to the Powerhouse ‘move’
know, we often do not get a response, and when we do, it is usually just a
statement that the ‘move’ is wonderful, not addressing our concerns.
My friends and I are
examining the statement, and within a few days we will send out yet another
bulletin, with detailed analysis and assessment.
I did promise to correct
any errors I had made, and just after sending out Bulletin 60 I realised that I
may have given a wrong impression on one matter. The demolition of the display
cabinets did take me by surprise, and bulletin 60 gives the impression that
this was not forecast. On reflection, this was wrong. Some time ago Ms Havilah
mentioned the refurbishment of this area, and my volunteer friends tell me that
this was outlined to the Thursday volunteers on the online meeting of 19 March,
one of the very few that I have not attended since the shutdown last March.
In mitigation, one of the
things that worried me was the manner in which the
demolition is being carried out. I thought that only minor work needed to be
done on the display cases. Under the circumstances of this demolition, I
thought that the least that should have been done is to cover the Bleriot with
dust sheets. I am getting advice on this from experienced curators, and this
will be part of the next bulletin. And no, for those of you who know the story,
I do not think that my concern is at all tinged by my affection for this particular aircraft, about which I have written several
articles and booklets and been involved in related activities!
On a more positive note, we
have just finished a project that some friends and I began some time ago. This
is a small booklet about the aircraft of the Powerhouse collection, and it can
be downloaded from the website https://www.ahsansw.com/ either
as a booklet or as a plain .pdf . If you can’t print it off and would like a copy, email me at tomlockley@gmail.com and
I will print one for you with pleasure. The collection is really outstanding and I hope we can all work together to Linksmake the most of it, and indeed of the whole museum
complex. More to come shortly!
Thanks to all the people
giving me information, ideas and suggestions: too many
to acknowledge fully. Things are happening, and I am hopeful that there will
soon be a third bulletin within a week or so with exciting news!
Campaign
to save the Powerhouse
Australia’s
major museum of arts and sciences in Sydney’s most evocative heritage building.
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Links: email exchange
Buletin 60 about which Ms Havilah was complaining