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| Time to revitalise: Museum director Rose Hiscock aims to turn it into a "buzzing must-visit location for young 20-somethings" |
Sydneysiders have fallen out of love with the Powerhouse Museum but new director Rose Hiscock plans to rekindle the passion, revealing a fresh strategy to bring back the crowds to its three sites.
Ms Hiscock, the director of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, which includes the Powerhouse, the Powerhouse Discovery Centre at Castle Hill and the Sydney Observatory, outlined her new strategic plan days after announcing that the institution would cut a fifth of its staff.
Employees were stunned by the announcement on Thursday and some expressed fears a predicted loss of 55 staff would be greater.
Installed as director in July last year, Ms Hiscock said the operating structure of 35 separate areas would be simplified to 16 teams, and that she had been open with staff about the need to manage the museum responsibly.
"The staff are naturally concerned about the changes and their position, but the executive team and all of our people are focused on the future of our organisation," she said.
Up to $5 million annually from staff cutbacks would be reinvested in permanent and temporary exhibition renewal, site developments, new programs and gallery spaces, with a master plan being developed to:
- Redevelop the Powerhouse by integrating into the Darling Harbour precinct with a new entrance expected to face the planned Goods Line walkway linking Central with Haymarket, Ultimo and Darling Harbour.
- Ensure the Sydney Observatory becomes a leading tourism attraction as part of the Barangaroo development
- Open up the Powerhouse Discovery Centre, the home of its giant collection store warehouse, to greater community involvement and tapping the potential of Sydney's west.
- Pedestrians will be be able to walk the first section of Sydney's version of New York's High Line by the end of the year between Central Station and Darling Harbour. The line – part of which will consist of raised walkways – is to be built in two stages and include major destinations such as the Frank Gehry-designed Dr Chau Chak Wing Building being built at the University of Technology and the Powerhouse.
Ms Hiscock said Sydneysiders had fallen out of love with the Powerhouse Museum, with attendances declining over the longer term, but she wanted to double the number of visitors within five years by focussing on school and tertiary education students and young adults. She said the museum needed to capitalise on the revitalisation of Darling Harbour and Ultimo, turning the museum into a "buzzing must-visit location for young twenty-somethings" as a first date outing with bars, cafes and restaurants.
She said the museum also had to regain its critical reputation by revitalising and expanding its permanent exhibition galleries and focus on key disciplines including technologies, health and medicine, physical sciences, engineering, architecture and the built environment, design and decorative arts, fashion and contemporary culture.
A museum wing dedicated to fashion was cited as a possible example of how the museum's 500,000 item permanent collection could be exhibited for the general public but also work as a resource for high school and tertiary education design students as well as form a backdrop for events such as Australian fashion week.
"At the moment, we have a small and popular temporary exhibit about the work of designer Catherine Martin," Ms Hiscock said. "But imagine a wing that tells the story of fashion in Australia where you can look at creations from the beginning of settlement through to Jenny Kee, Collette Dinnigan to Catherine Martin."
Ms Hiscock said the potential of the Sydney Observatory and the Powerhouse Discovery Centre had been untapped. She said the observatory should be one of the must-visit tourist destinations, comparing "its charm" with the Royal Observatory Greenwich in Britain, which updated its attractions with the opening of a planetarium in 2007.
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