Powerhouse Parramatta

Powerhouse Parramatta rises on the north bank of the Parramatta River in Western Sydney as the first New South Wales state cultural institution built in the region and the largest museum ever built in the state, delivered by Infrastructure NSW with Lendlease as builder. Franco-Japanese studio Moreau Kusunoki won the international design competition with a scheme that refuses to hide its structure: an intricate steel exoskeleton of more than 1,300 individual pieces carries the building from the outside, freeing large column-free presentation spaces within and giving the museum a machine-like silhouette that reads as an instrument rather than a container. Genton is local architect, with Arup on structure, facade, acoustics and sustainability, McGregor Coxall on landscape and L'Observatoire International on lighting. About 30,000 square metres (roughly 323,000 square feet) of floor area spreads across seven levels, with more than 18,000 square metres given to exhibitions and public space and a glazed two-storey link bridge joining the galleries. The program runs well past galleries: a theatre, a demonstration kitchen, a rooftop terrace, retail and learning studios set along a new riverfront public domain. The Powerhouse collection, one of the largest applied arts and sciences holdings in the Southern Hemisphere, supplies the objects, and the program spans engineering, First Nations water knowledge, children's spaces and contemporary commissions, with the museum expecting around two million visitors a year.