State Significant Development
Powerhouse Ultimo Renewal
City of Sydney
Current Status: Determination
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- SEARs
- Prepare EIS
- Exhibition
- Collate Submissions
- Response to Submissions
- Assessment
- Recommendation
- Determination
Concept Proposal for the renewal of Powerhouse Ultimo
Attachments & Resources
Notice of Exhibition (1)
Request for SEARs (1)
SEARs (1)
EIS (39)
Response to Submissions (21)
Agency Advice (17)
Additional Information (10)
Determination (4)
Approved Documents
There are no post approval documents available
Note: Only documents approved by the Department after November 2019 will be published above. Any documents approved before this time can be viewed on the Applicant's website.
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Submissions
Name Withheld
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Every capital city that I have visited has their main museums in the capital cities and satellite museums in other provincial cities.
Would London move their Victoria and Albert and Science Museums to suburban locations? Of course they would not!
So why are we?
Clive Lucas, OBE
Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner, Investment NSW
Support
Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner, Investment NSW
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Attachments
Judith Matheson
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Judith Matheson
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The proposed plan for the site is a museum in name only. The EIS does not take into account the intention to radically alter the museum’s purpose, form, functions and facilities. The world class collection of the Powerhouse Museum will largely be reduced to a backdrop to support the creative installations of artists and designers, rather than its intended purpose to provide informal and formal learning opportunities for the whole community.
The current museum building was designed for a working life of 100 years and yet these wholesale changes are recommended only 35 years later. The original complex was itself an outstanding example of structural infill and adaptive reuse of an old powerhouse. This architectural philosophy has become even more important in the years since as governments works to reduce our carbon emissions. The enormous redevelopment cost of $500m, which largely ignores the building’s intended purpose, cannot be justified on environmental or sustainability grounds. The Powerhouse will not be saved, as the now Premier announced on 4 July 2020. Under this proposal, it will disappear!
Further the lack of transparency around the business case and future plans for the old tramshed building (Harwood), which has been excluded from this proposal, need to be addressed and made public so that the long-term plans for the whole site can be assessed. The piecemeal approach to developing the future of one of our state’s great cultural initiations does no credit to the government and its planners.
The current EIS should be rejected.
Stewart Reed
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Stewart Reed
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Attachments
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As a registered architect who was previously the chair of the AIA(NSW) Heritage Committee with a passion for exemplary architecture by local architects in Australia
I note the following Items of Concern relating to this SSDA:
The application Indicates the redevelopment area to include the Award winning, internationally recognised, Adaptive Reuse buildings of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo competed 1988.
The scope of the SSDA appears to have increased and differs from the public consultation webinar provided by Ethos Urban with regards the proposed view from Pier Street:
With reference to other visualisations provided in the SSDA:
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• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo is a Sulman Award winning project, receiving the Sir John Sulman Award in 1988, and is of significant importance to the architectural profession in NSW. The Sulman Award is the highest ranked award by the Australian Institute of Architects (known as the AIA) in NSW.
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo has also received the following awards:
The Presidents Award for Recycled Buildings – NSW Public Works Dept with Denton Corker Marshall
The Belle Interiors Award for Interior Design
The Sir Zelman Cowan Award Finalist
At the time, it was the first project ever to have been nominated in 3 categories in the National Architecture Awards.
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo is an exemplar of adaptive reuse, retaining original industrial fabric, and predates the Tate Modern in London (also an adaptive reuse of a Powerstation). It joins other eminent examples of adaptive reuse such as the Musee d’Orsay in Paris (an adaptive reuse of a railway station, opened in 1986).
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo is an example of the work of NSW Government Architect’s Office with Lionel Glendenning as Principal Architect and JW Thomson, Government Architect
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo was the first of many significant buildings on Harris Street to fulfill the Masterplan concept of Harris Street as the technological conduit of Sydney. Its location and scale is also in keeping within the current Master Plan for the Pyrmont Ultimo area.
It not only forms a direct link with the Original Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences building on Harris St, but also generated the scale of buildings that followed:
eg the ABC headquarters, the Ultimo Community Centre and the Ian Thorpe Swimming pool.
• The current heritage listing for the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo is incomplete as it only includes 2 buildings on the site.
• The scope of the SSDA indicates high rise development along Harris St to replace the Wran Building, Galleria and Harris St Forecourt. This is not in keeping with the stated aims of the EIS principles on Urban Design: “…maintain or increase the quality or quantity of the public domain on the site, and reveal and celebrate heritage fabric and spaces to the wider public domain’
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo of 1988 adaptive reuse including the additions of the Wran Building and Galleria was designed in direct response to the unique and varied collection that it housed. The form and scale of the Wran Building and Galleria responded to the large objects such as significant railway engines and a direct rail link from Central Railway station.
I have gleaned from press regarding the Museum’s collection, that the engines will be retained at Ultimo and therefore the Wran Building and Galleria must also be retained. As you know, the rail tracks from Central to the Powerhouse have been preserved under the new Goods Line redevelopment for future posterity and resurrection.
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo (including the former Ultimo Tramways Powerhouse together with the 1988 adaptive reuse and Additions) is on the AIA (NSW) Register of Significant Buildings – which recognises architectural merit, high architectural qualities, and important works from leading architects and architectural practices.
• The context and history of this place is significant to the history and development of Sydney and NSW.
• A recognisable presence in Sydney is important for Sydney to be acknowledge as an international player in Architecture, Adaptive Re-Use and Museums of Applied Arts and Applied Sciences.
• The visual impact of the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo has been significantly eroded by recent development at Darling Harbour. Whilst the reorientation of the entry toward Darling Harbour is welcome, the proposed height, scale and bulk of proposed development on Harris St is detrimental and insensitive to the existing streetscape, urban scale, existing buildings and amenity in the area.
• The Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo benefits the educational aspirations of current and future generations and is a tourist attraction.
• Removing buildings that are able to be renewed or further adapted to respond to current contexts and requirements is a deleterious action with regards environmental sensitivity, waste of resources & embodied energy, and reduction of the serious impacts of climate change.
• The proposed scope and bulk in the SSDA clearly demonstrates a detrimental visual impact to the important, existing buildings on the site.
Attachments
Jennifer Reath
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Jennifer Reath
Message
Please reconsider and re- engage with the local community!
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Brian Stokes
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Brian Stokes
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I am writing in opposition for the plans to change the primary form and function of the Powerhouse Museum. The proposed changes eliminate the science and technology focus of the museum (which the proposal now no longer recognises as a museum), which are demonstrably the most popular features of the Powerhouse.
I write to OPPOSE the misnamed “Powerhouse Ultimo Renewal” State Significant Development (SSD) application currently on exhibition at https://pp.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/projects/powerhouse-ultimo-renewal
I believe that the objective of this project, as the community demands, should be a Powerhouse Museum “REVIVAL”, ie to restore the museum to its former imposing status as a world-leading Applied Arts and Sciences Museum, not to completely change and degrade it through the so-called “Renewal” proposed.
The proposal to transform the current Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) into a Fashion And Design Information and Education Facility (ie no longer a museum) constitutes a significant downgrading of the institution.
- ‘Fashion and Design’ are only a small part of Applied Arts.
- ‘Fashion’ targets a very narrow segment of the public and does not attract children, a traditionally large proportion of the Museum’s visitors.
They are the future Scientists of Australia.
Downgrading the museum by turning it into a fashion and design “facility” will drastically
decrease visitation.
This is already obvious as the current Powerhouse dress, pottery & photographic exhibits attract little interest while the original technical sections are always full of family & school groups.
2 years ago the NSW Government halted the plans to demolish the heritage listed Powerhouse Museum as it exists in Ultimo after a massive community outcry. Assurances were given that this plan would be stopped. Clearly, the promise has been broken. The regularly flooded proposed site for the 'Parramatta Powerhouse' museum is insufficient to house most of the science and technology exhibits from Ultimo. The NSW government demolished heritage structures Willow Grove and St George's Terrace with a promise that they would be sensitively disassembled and rebuilt. Instead, these were summarily destroyed and cannot be reconstructed.
A 100 year planned life museum at Ultimo is being scrapped at a huge cost and in opposition to the clearly stated demands of the majority of NSW reisdents, whom I remind you, are voters.
This 'renewal' plan must be stopped.
Regards
Brian Stokes
4 Caley Lane
Linden NSW 2778
Andrew Simpson
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Andrew Simpson
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Jacksons Landing Community Association
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Jacksons Landing Community Association
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Many Jacksons Landing residents have voiced their concern and dismay at the dismantling of the Powerhouse Museum and the intended removal of artefacts and displays illustrating the technological and social history of the Pyrmont peninsula. Transforming this world-class museum into a general information and education facility focussing on fashion and design seems to be a politically inspired and culturally short-sighted manoeuvre.
Among many items which will now be stored and inaccessible in a remote warehouse are a scale model of Jacksons Landing itself, and many items associated with the Harris family, including two Sydney Lord Mayors.
We are aware that residents’ opinions have been sought and expressed. We see no evidence, however, that their opinions and the interests of Pyrmont and Ultimo residents have been heard. We hope it is not too late to engage in a serious, non-partisan analysis of the site, its scientific and social value, and its potential.
Mary Mortimer OAM
Chair, Jacksons Landing Community Association
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House Museum as a State Significant Development.
This plan will destroy the Powerhouse and its significance as a science and engineering museum.
It should be retained as a science and engineering museum and not turned into something that is totally incompatible with its current format.
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Attachments
Jana Vytrhlik
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Jana Vytrhlik
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Unlike the current redevelopment plan, which is short-sighted and lacks substance in its vision for the future, the Powerhouse Museum had always – until the critical changes in leadership during the first decade of the 2000s - lived up to its original concept from the 1980s: connect and cross-pollinate industrial and technological innovations with arts, social history and with broad sweep of contemporary issues. That’s what the Powerhouse Museum project was conceived like in the 1980s conceptually, architecturally, intellectually and most of all curatorially. Nothing like the Powerhouse Museum existed in Europe in the 1980s. It was only after 2000 when the major, and many abandoned, industrial sites in Europe and the UK started to be preserved and developed into heritage sites with adjacent museums reflecting on the industry and arts, and people living locally in the region and their history. German Lusatia and Essen regions, or the UK Sheffield industrial area are two random examples. The Powerhouse Museum as we, ie. the staff generation of the years 1980s-early 2000s used to know, it provided inspiration nationally and internationally, leading the way in integrating many areas of human creativity into an outstanding visitor experience and learning. The Powerhouse Museum aka Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences can continue doing exactly that if the recent promise made by the NSW Government, namely Dominic Perrottet made in July 2020, is kept. Only two years ago the NSW Government assured its citizens of maintaining the original purpose, direction and staffing level of the Powerhouse Museum. It would be tragic for the same Government to break the promise.
Jana Vytrhlik Powerhouse Museum (1986-2014) Education Officer Multicultural Programs 1986-1995; Cultural Diversity Programs 1995-1997; Manager, Education & Program Development 1997-2009; Manager, Grants & Research Development 2009-2014.
Ann Toy
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Ann Toy
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- it fails to respect, indeed it will destroy the heritage significance of Lionel Glendenning's Sulman award winning museum architecture and the ground breaking creative adaptive use of the restored power house station buildings.
- The estimated cost of the demolition and redevelopment of the site is wasteful and unacceptable at a time when many other cultural institutions / organisations in Sydney are struggling to survive because of lack of adequate funding and the impact of the pandemic.
-The PHM Ultimo can be refurbished and updated at a far more reasonable budget. and its exhibitions and collections on display should continue to focus on the themes relevant to the education and enjoyment of the people of New South Wales, not just fashion.
This EIS must be rejected and a new one developed with more relevant criteria.
Ann Toy.
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Bill Fisher
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Bill Fisher
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The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for this project covers in great detail the regulatory and other requirements to be met, and examines many aspects of this project: the purported benefits and expected costs and impacts. The document is long and broad in its coverage, but shallow, limited and misleading in its considerations and conclusions.
The EIS is about the “Powerhouse Ultimo” a hazy concept to commercialise Ultimo and do that with special regard to “fashion” and “design”, oh, and of course education and heritage. But what is proposed is a scenario where, without mention in the EIS, the crown jewel of NSW applied technology history, the Powerhouse Museum, will be wrecked, ruined and washed away should the EIS be approved.
The Powerhouse Museum is the result of over 140 years of careful collection, and covers decorative arts, costume, furniture, media and technologies from the steam engine to computers and space craft, with countless other facets of technology, supported by (at least until recently) curators and staff with deep knowledge of the displays. The museum collection includes items unique in the world, and very many that can be seen nowhere else in Australia. The Powerhouse Museum building design attracted a Sir John Sulman Medal, recognising its excellent design and fitness for purpose in displaying the collection. Combining the collection and the building, we have a Powerhouse Museum that is world class and needs to be recognised as such. And the EIS completely fails to mention this.
The EIS is misconceived, written to achieve base and shallow ends, and must be rejected.