Powerhouse Parramatta opening LIVE updates: Sydney’s new $915m cultural institution opens doors to the world

8.45am

What you need to know about your visit today

By Linda Morris and Anthony Segaert

The museum is open today from 10am to 5pm, and most of the venue is free to enter without a ticket. You do need a ticket for some parts of the opening festival and one special exhibit, though: Task Eternal, a large exhibit on the history of humanity’s attempts to fly. Powerhouse staff tell us they’re expecting a few queues.

Once the opening festival is over, the museum’s opening hours have been confirmed to be 10am to 5pm Monday to Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The museum’s only late-night opening will be Fridays, operating from 10am to 9pm.

The museum’s original business case – and the plan championed by its now-suspended chief executive Lisa Havilah – envisioned Powerhouse Parramatta operating seven days a week from 9am to 9pm. These extended hours were considered central to driving western Sydney’s nightlife and reaching the museum’s ambitious target of 2 million annual visitors. However, they impose a cost for staff and security and present a logistical challenge with the interaction of public exhibition visitors and attendees of private events. Bringing the museum into line with other cultural institutions was one of several measures contemplated by NSW Treasury to rein in the museum’s operational model. It’s hard not to conclude that it’s another hammer blow to Havilah’s vision.

8.25am

In the beginning...

By

“The Powerhouse Parramatta may be a billion-dollar mega-project, but its origins remain steeped in political folklore,” says arts writer Linda Morris, who has covered the twists and turns of this mammoth project since its inception. What that inception was, exactly, remains debated:

“To some of its fiercest critics, the plan to rebuild a century-old cultural institution dedicated to applied arts and sciences on the banks of the Parramatta River began as a back-of-the-napkin ‘thought bubble’ – reputedly egged along by a campfire chat between former Museum of Contemporary Art director Liz Ann Macgregor and then-premier Mike Baird during an overnight charity walk.”

“In her newly released memoir, The Power of the Real, reflecting on cultural policy, philanthropy, and public access, Macgregor puts that rumour to rest. The idea, she maintains, did not spring from campsite musings and was not hers.

“Rather, it emerged organically from years of discussions among western Sydney arts leaders before finding its way into an official infrastructure strategy update recommending the government ‘urgently consider relocation of the Powerhouse Museum to the Parramatta Cultural Precinct’.

8.11am

The big day is here

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Good morning. It’s Saturday November 7, which means that after more than a decade in the making, today Powerhouse Parramatta opens its doors to the public.

Workers have been streaming into the “milk-crate” building since the early hours of this morning (I’ve even spotted some last-minute window cleaning taking place).

The doors open to the public at 10am. There’ll be an official opening just beforehand. Stay with us for developments across the day.

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