The Powerhouse Museum is Australia's largest and most diverse museum and the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory.
Often described as a science museum, it actually has a diverse collection including decorative arts, science, communication, transport, costume, furniture, media, computer technology, space technology and steam engines.
It has existed in various guises for 125 years, and is home to some 400,000 artifacts, many of which are displayed or housed at the site it has occupied since 1988, and for which it is named - a converted electric tram energy generating station in the Inner West suburb of Ultimo, originally constructed in 1902.

Its origins date to 1879, when the Sydney International Exhibition was held in the Garden Palace, a purpose-built exhibition building in the Royal Botanic Gardens. At the conclusion of the Exhibition the Australian Museum (Sydney's museum of natural history) appointed a committee to select the best exhibits for permanent display in a proposed new museum within the Garden Palace to be called The Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum of New South Wales. The latest industrial, construction and design innovations would be displayed forecasting improvements to living standards and general health and well-being of the population.

The first curator, Joseph Maiden, was appointed and began organising the collection however, before it could be opened a fire completely destroyed the Garden Palace in September 1882. Only the most durable artefacts survived and Maiden commenced rebuilding the collection in a large tin shed in The Domain shared with the Sydney Hospital morgue.
The stench of decaying corpses contrasted with an institution dedicated to the promotion of sanitation, and after intense lobbying the museum was relocated to a three storey building in Harris Street, Ultimo, and renamed the 'Technological Museum'.

The site was adjacent to the Sydney Technical College, and was intended to provide material inspiration to the students. Branches were also established in some of the main industrial and mining centres of the state, including Broken Hill, Albury, Newcastle and Maitland.
It also quickly outgrew the main Harris Street site and by 1978 the situation had become dire, with many exhibits literally stuffed into its attic, and left unexhibited for decades.

On August 23 of that year, then New South Wales Premier, Neville Wran, nominated the decrepit Ultimo Power Station, just north of the Harris St site as the museum's new permanent home. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences spent an interim period exhibiting as the 'Powerhouse Museum - Stage One' in the nearby tram sheds before re-opening as the Powerhouse Museum at the new site on the 10th of March, 1988.
The main museum building encloses a space larger than that of the Sydney Opera House, comprising five levels, three courtyards and a cafeteria, as well as offices, workshops, library and storage in the annexed tram sheds. The space still proved inadequate and further offsite storage facilities were required.
Some 50,000 objects are now stored at Castle Hill in a state-of-the-art storage and preservation facility on a three hectare site built at a cost of AUD $12 million, and consisting of seven huge sheds, including one the size of an aircraft hangar,
The Powerhouse Discovery Centre at Castle Hill opened to the general public on 10 March 2006.
Following its closure as a working observatory in 1982, the Sydney Observatory was also incorporated into the Powerhouse Museum.

MAJOR ATTRACTIONS
There are a number of unique exhibits including the oldest steam engine in the world with a rotating action that is still in operation. Dating from 1785, it is one of only a handful remaining built by Boulton and Watt and was acquired from Whitbread's London Brewery in 1888; Locomotive No.1, the first steam locomotive to operate in New South Wales, built by Robert Stephenson in 1854; "The Strasburg Clock Model", built in 1887 by a 25-year old Sydney watchmaker named Richard Smith, a working model of the famous astronomical clock in Strasbourg's Notre Dame Cathedral.

EXHIBITIONS
The museum hosts a number of permanent exhibitions including:
Inspired! Design across time
Explores how social, cultural and technological changes have influenced the decorative arts and design over a period of 300 years and discovers the ways designers, manufacturers, industries and entrepreneurs have collaborated in making innovative objects.

Cyberworlds
Computers and connections through them, and looks at the very first computing machines to the latest designs at the time of launch.

Space - beyond this world
Space and man's discoveries relating to it. It includes a life size model space-shuttle cockpit. It has a feature on Australian satellites and joins the Transport exhibit through an underground temporary exhibit walkway and two side entrances.

Steam
Nearly all of the engines on display are fully operational and are regularly demonstrated working on steam power. Together with the Boulton and Watt engine, and the Museum's locomotives, steam truck and traction engines, they are a unique working collection tracing the development of steam power from the 1770s to the 1930s..

Experimentations
This science exhibition is very popular with children because of the many interactive displays demonstrating aspects of magnetism, light, electricity, motion and the senses. These include a machine that explains how chocolate is made and lets one taste four 'stages' of chocolate.

Transport
Transport through the ages, from horse drawn carts through steam engines, cars and planes to the latest hybrid technology. There is a setup of a railway platform with Steam Locomotive No. 1243, its 87 years of service being the longest in Australia.

EcoLogic
Focuses on the challenges facing the environment, human impact, and ways and technologies to stop this effect.

Blockbuster exhibitions
The museum has also hosted a number of blockbuster exhibitions in recent years along specific lines. Among these were 'Star Trek', 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Star Wars', 'Faberge', 'Treasures of Palestine','Christian Dior', 'Kylie', 'Diana' and the 'Audrey Hepburn' exhibition.
Details of these exhibitions are published in media and on the Powerhouse website

Powerhouse Museum Website