Powerhouse Ultimo Renewal

First, I object in the strongest possible terms to this review process. To allow just 28 days to evaluate and respond to some 2,000 pages of the EIS is a barrier for most people and is a further example of a box-ticking process that shows contempt for the people of NSW.
On the substance of the EIS, the plan for the Ultimo Powerhouse is a desecration of what was Australia's outstanding museum of science, technology, engineering and design. A fashion showpiece and function space is in no way an adequate use of this award-winning, custom-designed building.
As a resident of regional NSW I am devastated by the dismantling of the outstanding collection of the former Powerhouse. For families and in particular for children visiting Sydney, to see the major exhibits of rail and space technology and the interactive facilities all under one roof was a great adventure and a highly educational experience. Regional, interstate and international visitors will not be trekking around Ultimo, Parramatta and Castle Hill to try to piece together in their minds what was one of the nation's great collections.
I fully support the Powerhouse Museum Alliance in its informed objections to this absurd proposal.
Public museums are intended for the edification, enlightment and delight of the people. The state of NSW has many highly informed, distinguished museum specialists who should be the ones consulted about this misguided project. Instead they have been ignored, and the mission of the museum is being trashed. The "Renewal" proposal is a disgrace.

Good idea

This is an interim request for a longer period for comments re this project. You have made public 2182 pages of material, which requires careful study. Please lengthen the period available for comments.
Also, we need an assurance that further demoliton work will not occur at the Powerhosue Museum at Ultimo until the comments are properly addressed. In particular, we note that no people with museum qualfications and experience appear to have been involved in the preparation of these documents, and this deficiency must be addressed.

The proposed renewal of post-powerhouse museum site is highly beneficial to the community, stakeholders, and a new chapter of the Ultimo site utilisation; accommodating to its value-adding arts, culture and sustainable existence - for its changing priorities and usage, including technological, historical and cultural hub, both in significance and accessibility for the whole-of-state enjoyment. The proposal has reasonable MERITS.

For these reasons, as a long time local resident I am strongly SUPPORTIVE of this very important next chapter of its Ultimo site, including its proposed renewal.

Mailed submission attached

Powerhouse Ultimo Renewal – Submission Objecting
My objection to the current proposal is encapsulated in what I view as the egregious misuse – see above – of the English language: what is proposed is not a “renewal” of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo but the next step in the destruction of the State’s historic museum of applied arts and sciences.
Ever since the announcement by Premier Mike Baird that the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo would be transferred to Parramatta, the question has stubbornly remained: Why does the provision of a major state cultural institution in Parramatta (wherever it might be sited, whatever its remit) necessarily involve the destruction of the Powerhouse at Ultimo? When Tate Modern was opened, Tate Britain remained; when Tate Liverpool opened, the Tates in London remained. When NGV Federation Square opened, NGV St Kilda Road remained, hugely revitalised. The list could go on.
You would not have to have come down in the last shower to have thought at the time: This about developing the Ultimo site. This possibility was confirmed, at the time, by a number of people who claimed to have insider knowledge of secret discussions between the government and developers.
After years of public anger and remonstration, on Saturday 4 July 2020, then Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, issued a media release headed: NSW Government to retain Ultimo Museum.
Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo will continue to welcome visitors to its world renowned exhibits, with the NSW Government today announcing it will remain open and operate alongside the new state-of-the-art facility planned for Western Sydney.
We now know that this announcement – “the retention of the Powerhouse at Ultimo” – was a bald-faced lie to the people of NSW and, in particular, to the museum professionals and their supporters who had worked endlessly to “save” the Powerhouse at Ultimo. The removal of the collection from the Harwood Building to Castle Hill was proof positive that the government had no intention to retain the Powerhouse at Ultimo in its historic configuration of exhibition and curatorial spaces. The current proposal confirms all this in black and white.
What angers and disappoints me most is the supine complicity of the Powerhouse Trust, under its various recent presidents, and the CEOs, in the destruction of what should have remained the historic CBD jewel flagship, properly refurbished, along with the new institution in Parramatta. A museum board and management which seems to think that its role is to support the creation of “theatre, performance, production and rehearsal space” at Ultimo is a museum board and management that has lost its vision – indeed, it seems to me, as such a development necessarily reduces the area available for museum exhibits, especially with the proposed removal of the 80s award-winning, purpose-designed additions, a complete betrayal of the MAAS’s mission. Readers of this submission will know that the quote in the previous sentence is from Lisa Havilah and Annette Pitman’s September 11 2020 letter to the Pyrmont Peninsula Place Strategy, which enthusiastically places the Powerhouse site at the centre of a creative industries precinct. Four months after the Premier and Treasurer pledged the “retention” of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo, the CEO and Create NSW write a document which talks more about the development of “the Powerhouse site”, and fudges the future of the Harwood Building.
The destruction of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo is a cultural and financial disaster and I take this opportunity to OBJECT in the strongest possible terms to this phase of the proposal. The misuse of language to term the process a “renewal” is shocking.