In the twilight of the first Saturday in March, gay men, lesbians and transgenders from across the city and across the globe assemble in Sydney. Organisations, groups and individuals come together on...

Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, is an intriguing figure. Mary Somerville, one of the very few recognised women mathematicians and scientists of the day, took the 17 year old Ada to London to int...

From its inception in the 1880s the Powerhouse Museum has collected ship, mechanical, medical and railway models. After the invention of aeroplanes, aircraft models were added to this list. Aircraft...

Alastair Morrison, Life Fellow and friend of the Powerhouse Museum, passed away on 4 August, aged 93. Alastair was a passionate collector and one of the Museum's most generous donors. Born in Peking...

Alvan Clark (1804-1887) was one of the most famous telescope makers of the United States in the nineteenth century. Originally a portrait painter he built his first reflector in 1844 and two years lat...

In 1851 a young man named Frederick Scott Archer announced his discovery of a new photographic process that could adhere to glass. This was a major breakthrough for the process allowed photographers t...

In the second half of the nineteenth century interest in the anatomical structure of the animal and vegetable world increased markedly. Problems with acquiring and preserving delicate tissues and orga...

While 1888 is best remembered as Australia's Centenary it was also an important date for the new company formed by Ernest and Alfred Wunderlich. This was the year they not only patented their new zinc...

Charles James Merfield Merfield was born in 1866 and initially worked as a civil engineer. In the 1890s he became one of Australia's best known amateur astronomers. It was in this period that he focu...

The Powerhouse Museum has been building the country's first collection of contemporary product design selected from the prestigious Australian Design Awards. Since 1992 the Powerhouse Museum has rec...

In 1910 the Victorian Government Astronomer, Pietro Baracchi, led an eclipse expedition of Australian astronomers to Bruny Island, Tasmania. Included in this elite group were G.F. Dodwell, and W R Bro...

In September 1907 F. K. McClean, of the Royal Astronomical Society, set off from England for a small island in the middle of the Pacific. His destination, "Flint Island", is located north of Tahiti an...

On the 21 September 1922 an eclipse of the sun passed across the centre of Australia providing optimum conditions for observations. The scientific community used this opportunity to confirm Einstein...

On the 21 September 1922 an eclipse of the sun passed across the centre of Australia providing optimum conditions for observations. The scientific community used this opportunity to confirm Einstein...

On the 21 September 1922 an eclipse of the sun passed across the centre of Australia providing optimum conditions for observations. The scientific community used this opportunity to confirm Einstein...

In the late 1920s and 30s Australia produced a number of internationally acknowledged pioneers of early aviation such as Kingsford-Smith and Ulm. One whose name appears less often but whose accomplish...

In the late 1920s and 30s Australia produced a number of globally internationally pioneers of early aviation such as Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm. Australia also had a number of pioneer wom...

In 2006 the ResMed S8 sleep apnea flow generator and humidifier received the Australian Design Award of the Year. Bart Kenyon, mechanical team leader for the flow generator talks about the innovative...

Arthur Bishop's greatest contribution to Australian life may not be his inventions, but his proof of a very simple proposition: that exporting Australian knowledge can be just as valuable as exporting...

BlueSky Creative, the company that made headlines when it was selected to design the Sydney 2000 Olympic torch, was founded by Mark Armstrong in 1984. The group consists of industrial, graphic and env...

For centuries skeletal materials have provided the raw materials for making objects. Teeth (ivory), horn and tortoiseshell are probably the best known today but bone has also been used. Horn and torto...

'The nature of the disease means your life is shortened and this concentrates your creativity and passion and the urge to express yourself honestly. I've realised I wouldn't have created any of my wor...

Breville is owned by the Australian company Housewares International. Breville was founded in Melbourne in 1932 and for over 40 years has been researching and developing new appliances. Designers in B...

The days of a drawing board in a design studio are long gone. Products are designed in 3-D on computer, and the data sent to a prototyping machine to produce a one-off for testing. Once the design is...

'I can do as I want, make what I want. It's very challenging: it's something I build up to each year. I put a lot of effort into it and I see if I can do better than last year.' Brian Ross began ma...

Invented in 1893, the carburettor was the preferred method of supplying fuel to car engines until the advent of fuel injection. In the 1970s, fuel injection began to replace carburettors in many popul...

In 1846 Carl Zeiss (1816-1888) started his instrument making business in a small town of Jena in Germany. He quickly became interested in optics and by 1848 was making and designing microscopes. By 18...

This is an extremely rare one-off photograph of the New South Wales Premier, Charles Cowper and members of his second ministry. Cowper, sometimes referred to as 'Slippery Charlie', formed this group i...

These photographic negatives were taken by the Sydney based company of Charles Kerry and Co. Over 2,900 glass plates were produced between 1892 and 1917, although a few may have been photographed in t...

The invention of a marine clock (chronometer) which could be used to accurately measure longitude was arguably the most significant development in maritime navigation in the seventeenth and eighteenth...

The origins of this collection can be dated back to 1855 when William Henry Hudson set up the firm of Hudson Brothers in a small shop in Botany Street, Redfern in Sydney. Initially the company special...

Almost all of the glass plate negatives in the Clyde photographic collection were taken at the Clyde works in Granville, and depict both the workers and the machinery they manufactured. Subjects cover...

William Henry Hudson set up the firm of Hudson Brothers in 1855 in a small shop in Redfern, Sydney. While initially specializing in woodworking they soon began to focus on metal work and the making of...

This is the story of working life within the engineering companies of the Hudson Brothers and its successor the Clyde Engineering Incorporated Pty Ltd between 1883 and 1945. In the late nineteenth...

Combs were one of the most popular uses for horn, bone, tortoiseshell, wood, antler, ivory and iron. The different materials reflected the wealth of their users. Combs catered for a range of people an...

Digital conservation photography of the Cyril Ruwald Collection of architectural plans and drawings is being undertaken in 2008 to provide greater access to conservators, staff and clients. Conservati...

As part of the Total Asset Management project at the Powerhouse Museum the Cyril Ruwald Collection has undergone intensive conservation treatment in 2008. During the conservation of the Cyril Ruwald C...

The following interview with Museum Conservator, Gosia Dudek was conducted by Curator, Melanie Pitkin in September 2009, for the Museum's Object of the Week blog. The processes that follow an acquis...

In 1782 John Troughton purchased Benjamin Cole's shop in Fleet Street, London enabling him to sell his own signed products. His instrument making business supported several dynasties of Troughtons bef...

This ensemble was designed and made by Andre Courreges, the Parisian fashion designer, and sold through Harrods in London in 1965. It comprises a mini-dress made of bright yellow wool with a white vin...

Australia is an incredibly large country. It's only when you drive out of the cities and clock up some country miles that you can begin to appreciate its vastness. Or better still, in a jet hurtling a...

Cyril Christian Ruwald was one of several architects who designed hotels for Tooth & Co during the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1920s Ruwald worked with Reg Prevost, a noted patron of young architects...

During the 1820s and 1830s, the inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis Daguerre, managed a diorama business in Paris. Dioramas were theatrical narratives based on both travellers tales and historical ev...

Excerpt from 'Photographic Charting of the Heavens', by R. L. J. Ellery, from the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 1892 'The particular parts of the zones to be photographed on a night...

Design+Industry was founded in 1987 by Murray Hunter. With a team of more than 35 designers and engineers it is the largest industrial design consulting group in Australia. From studios in Sydney an...

Design Resource, founded by John Brown in 1980, designs products for a variety of industries, from small electronic consumer goods to rail transport. Based in Crows Nest, Design Resource works joint...

Haute Couture (or 'High Fashion'), as the name suggests, is not for just anyone. It is the pinnacle of fashion, made specifically to the exact dimensions of the wearer, in high quality, luxurious fabr...

Lieutenant William Dawes, who came out to Australia with the First Fleet, made the first recorded meteorological observations in Australia but the next set were probably made from Parramatta Observato...

The first two photographic processes were the daguerreotype (which created a positive image on a silver plate) and the calotype (which created a paper negative). Both became commercially available in...

Cylinder dictating machines are commonly referred to as Dictaphones, but this name was just one of the brand names developed by the Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia was one of the bigger compani...

The first cylinder sound recording machine was developed by Thomas Edison in 1877. This invention etched the sound wave patterns from a mouthpiece onto tinfoil wrapped around a 4 inch cylinder. Howeve...

In 1880 Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, formed the Volta Laboratory Association. This was set up with prize money Bell received from the French Academy of Science in...

After a 10 year break from his tinfoil in 1887, Edison re-entered the sound recording market in 1887 with the 'Spectacle Model' phonograph. Conceived as a tool for the office environment it used a new...

Clocks are basically instruments which maintain and measure oscillations to determine time. Early clocks measured the movement of a pendulum whose energy was allowed to escape through the appropriatel...

the EMS VCS 1 - prototype to the EMS VCS 3 In 1983 the Powerhouse museum purchased the music and recording instruments that comprised the Australian composer Don Banks' electronic music studio. The c...

The use of plant fibre to make baskets for carrying and storing can be dated back the earliest years of human development. The perishable nature of this material, along with the fact that most baskets...

On December 5, 1909 George Augustine Taylor became the first man in Australia to fly an untethered heavier-than-air craft. On this day he made several flights on Narrabeen beach, north of Sydney, with...

Just four days after George Taylor made the first free heavier-than-air flight in the glider at Narrabeen, a young Englishman, Colin Defries left the ground in a Wright Model A, that he had named The...

Aviation journalist, Jack Percival, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald of August 7th, 1960: "No special celebration is planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the first flight in a powered aeropl...

The 1988 bicentennial project of the Civil Aviation Authority, an authoritative chronology of Australian aviation history, researched and produced by two well-respected aviation historians, Neville Pa...

On December 9th 2009 the Powerhouse Museum celebrated the centenary of the first powered flight in Australia through a joint meeting with the Royal Aeronautical Society and Aviation Historical Society...

Maritime and colonial expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly the opening up of Sperm whaling, saw a marked increase in the number of ships in southern seas. With French, Ru...

The global time differences between Australia, the USA and Europe mean Australian designers are at work while many international clients are asleep. Design Resource works with international design par...

The first items to receive major attention were the frame and engine unit. 3265 is the only surviving 32 class locomotive still with its original low frame-these were prone to cracking, and most were...

The photographer George Bell was employed by Kerry and Company in 1890, and the work he produced over the following ten years, stands amongst the best of this period. Bell's pictures transcended hackn...

From the earliest days of photography through to the early twentieth century the most popular cameras were those that took a rectangular photographic 'plate'. These 'plates' were generally made of gla...

In December 1963 the Industrial Design Council of Australia began to review Australian products for inclusion in the Australian Design Index. These products received the Good Design Label and in 1964...

(1758 - 1808) Philip Gidley King was the son of a draper from Cornwall and sought to advance his position through a career in the navy, which he joined as a captain's servant in 1770. By 1880 he wa...

" I became a designer because I had this interest in creative pursuits as well as technical things. I was always interested in the arts, drawing and visualising things but I was also interested in phy...

The Tyrrell Photographic Collection at the Powerhouse Museum contains around 1,300 glass plate negatives taken by the Sydney based photographer Henry King. They were taken between 1880 and 1917, altho...

In 1903 H. C. Russell, Government Astronomer at Sydney Observatory, fell seriously ill and his position was taken over by Henry Alfred Lenehan. Lenehan who had been working at the observatory since 18...

The first cameras appeared in 1839. They consisted of a lens attached to a wooden body into which was inserted a photographic plate. The simple design meant the early cameras could be made by carpente...

Before the arrival of synthetic resins, natural plastics such as amber, horn, tortoiseshell, bitumen, shellac, gutta-percha and rubber were used to mould and manufacture artefacts. In Europe horn was...

For thousands of years humans have used animals, plants and minerals as raw materials for the manufacture of both practical and decorative objects. The uses to which they put materials such as bone, w...

The Ian Rumsey Australian Textiles Collection comprises a representative range of 19th and 20th century Australian embroidery and needlework (48 pieces in all), including doyleys, milk jug covers, tab...

Until recently most passenger ferries operated at speeds of 19 knots or less, with long 'turnaround' periods to unload and load passengers and vehicles. During the 1990s, large catamaran ferries made...

The Industrial Design Council of Australia (IDCA) was formed in 1958. It was not the first industrial design promotion body in Australia, but became one of the most active. Preceding the IDCA, the S...

Product designers like Design+Industry often work with manufacturers and clients in other countries. This can mean travelling to Europe or the USA to meet with clients, or to Asia to meet with manufac...

Having the collection available to search on line, featured in TV shows like ?The Collectors?, and in the media, has seen many people contacting the museum with information about our objects. Sometime...

Whether looking at highly detailed sculptures by Japanese craftsmen, Fijian ceremonial necklaces or scrimshaw it is apparent that ivory's durability and comparative rarity has made it a much sought af...

The Tyrrell Photographic Collection at the Powerhouse Museum is made up of around 7,900 glass plate negatives taken between 1885 and the 1930s, which were collected by the Sydney bookseller James Tyrr...

These 795 photographic negatives were taken by unknown photographers between the late nineteenth century and 1935 and are part of a larger collection of 7,900 negatives once owned by Sydney bookselle...

These finely carved 'okimono' ivory figurines are from Japan and date from the Meiji period, 1868 to 1912. It was during this period that Japan was opened up to the West after Commander Perry's visit...

In the mid 1970s Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson began to forge a unique vision of Australian dress, one that didn't look to the trend-driven fashion mainstream for inspiration but drew on Australia's cul...

For four years curators, registrars, archivists, photographers and conservators at the Powerhouse Museum have been involved in selecting, documenting and storing the archive of one of Australia's lead...

" Rolling stock has always been of considerable interest to us, because they are big, they're powerful, and boys love toys, they love trains. We were invited by State Rail which is now known as RailC...

" I suppose the start was we wanted to design the best juicer in the world. From then it kind of branched into a multitasking kind of project I suppose. We identified at least a dozen areas where the...

In 1928 the Australians Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm were the first to fly across the Pacific from America to Australia. Their plane, the Southern Cross, is probably best known for this his...

"Fanning Island, now called Tabuaeran, is one of the Line Islands group, part of the Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribas), situated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 996 nautical miles due sout...

Combs were one of the most popular uses for horn and in earlier times were also made from bone, wood, antler, ivory and iron. The different materials catered for a range of people, and prices. Combs w...

When Matthew Flinders set out in 1801 to circumnavigate Australia, he took with him a collection of five chronometers. The only one to survive the journey was this one. It was made in London by Thomas...

Loose pebbles were the first objects used to aid humans in calculating numbers. Later they were used as counters on ruled boards before a range of materials were used to suspend counters on wire frame...

'I was introduced to my first pair of heels and I never looked back' Michael Gates, like many other gays, spent his younger days enduring the taunts of his school peers. His current success as a dra...

From its inception in the 1880s the Powerhouse has collected ship, aircraft, mechanical, and medical models. They were acquired for their educational value in outlining developments in various branche...

The first observatory at Mount Stromlo was set up in 1911 to house the 9-inch Grubb refractor telescope donated by James Oddie to the Solar Physics Committee in 1909. For the next 17 years this small...

" This is the NPT2 - it's viewed as the best in the world. It's the outcome of the redevelopment of the original NPT1. It offers features which are unique in design - the shape, the style of the prod...

The Trustees, Director and staff of the Powerhouse Museum acknowledge with sadness the recent death of aviation pioneer Nancy-Bird Walton, AO, OBE, Dame of St John (Knights of Malta). Nancy was a cr...

A grant from RailCorp in August 2006 under its rail heritage initiative allowed the Museum to begin work on a new boiler for 3265. The original boiler, a fully-riveted, copper-box construction, had al...

" Sunbeam decided to redesign the Mixmaster because we hadn't had a new design of a die-cast Mixmaster for at least 20 years. In those years we'd come out with plastic models but we didn't have anythi...

Nielsen Design Associates, established by Carl Nielsen in 1961, was one of the first industrial design consulting studios in Sydney. In 1985 David Wood, who had been with the company since its early d...

The astronomical and surveying instruments relating to the Parramatta Observatory were some of the earliest brought to the Australian colony. Many were purchased by Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of Ne...

In 2006 the ResMed S8 sleep apnea flow generator and humidifier received the Australian Design Award of the Year. Senior industrial designer Perry Lithgow spoke to the Powerhouse Museum about the indu...

'Art should be for everyone ... people get intimidated by art. It should be part of our daily lives instead of something we go and see once a week' Peter Tully melded art, life and politics. He wou...

'I happen to be a lesbian but the style of what I do has a campy quality.' Glass and mixed media artist and designer Philippa Playford joined the Mardi Grass workshop as a volunteer in 1989 and worke...

(1791-1856) As a native born son P. P. King played as important a role in the development of New South Wales as his father Governor Philip Gidley King. He was born on Norfolk Island in 1791 to Phili...

Richards & Co.' were in fact a different company and they are the company credited as the authors of the photographs in Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition1879, even though some pho...

Up until the 1920s most commercially made radios were imported into Australia but after this date increasing numbers were manufactured locally. Some of the first truly compact radios produced in Aus...

In 1967 HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, became involved with the Industrial Design Council of Australia and established an annual award in his name to promote greater awareness of good desig...

The NSW Railways set locomotive 3265 aside for the Powerhouse Museum when it was withdrawn from service in 1968. As the proud bearer of the Hunter nameplates when it hauled the Newcastle Express servi...

As part of the Total Asset Management project at the Powerhouse Museum the Cyril Ruwald Collection has been successfully rehoused in 2008. The Collection was originally housed in four large storage bo...

In 1889 George Eastman patented his first Kodak camera. While not the first to take roll film, Kodak's the new format revolutionised photography and led to the decline of the 'plate' camera. The cheap...

'I've been an antique dealer for 30 years and this little costume thing is just a little hobby of mine' A major obsession would be a more appropriate description of Ron Muncaster's 'little hobby', de...

These objects were once part of the Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) collection and were donated to the Powerhouse Museum in 1981. The Society was formed in 1901 and is the oldest historical...

The word scrimshaw is primarily used to describe the carving and decoration of baleen (sometimes referred to as whalebone) and skeletal bones and teeth (sometimes referred to as ivory). Other material...

Shepard Fairey, born 15th February 1970, is a street artist and designer well known for his thought-provoking, and often controversial, designs. Graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with...

"Concerning the functioning of this commercial museum. It is now intended to add another section of Industry, i.e. that of Naval Architecture. Several of the Shipping Companies have lent models of the...

This collection of artefacts relate to two people closely associated with the pioneering of Sydney's shipping and manufacturing business. Simeon Lord and his wife Mary were both emancipated convicts w...

Thomas Grubb entered the scientific instrument business in the 1830s and quickly gained a name in the construction of telescopes. Largely self taught he ran his firm from Charlemont Bridge in Dublin w...

Loose pebbles were the first objects used to aid humans in calculating numbers. Later they were used as counters on ruled boards before a range of materials were used to suspend counters on wire frame...

The most common material used in box construction is wood but other materials such as: marble, porcelain, ivory, gold, silver, horn, and tortoiseshell have also been used. While some boxes are simple...

Spectrographs like astrographs were photographic apparatus attached to telescopes to record the stellar activity. They were similar to the spectroscope except the photographic plate was used instead o...

Towards the end of the 1700s the practice of medicine in Europe was undergoing revolutionary change. Doctors were beginning to recognise that diseases were not patchworks of symptoms, but instead were...

Founded in America, Sunbeam has been operating in Australia for about 90 years and became Australian-owned in 1987. The first Sunbeam appliance to be made in Australia was the Mixmaster. This product...

The Sydney 2000 Olympic Games was an important event in the history of Sydney and Australia. Sydney's infrastructure and organisational abilities were under scrutiny from all 199 nations (10 651 athle...

In 1847 the Colonial Government closed the old Parramatta Observatory and put its instruments into storage. The colony seemed to have sufficient scientific supporters for a new observatory in Sydney b...

During his term as Government Astronomer H.C. Russell worked on two internationally significant photographic projects. The first was the organisation of photography for the New South Wales section of...

Sometime around July 1891 Sydney Observatory received a new enlarging lens for the star camera. This attachment, when combined with the Grubb lens which had arrived in September the previous year, en...

In 1870 H. C. Russell was appointed Government Astronomer at Sydney Observatory. He quickly grasped the significant role photography was beginning to play in astronomy and by the end of the nineteenth...

In Autumn 1886, George Gabriel Stokes, President of the Royal Society of London received a letter from Admiral Mouchez, the Director of the Paris Observatory, "? in response to the presentation of spe...

From cutting-edge medical devices to the branding on your water bottle, Sydney's product designers make their mark on the world. Across inner-city offices and industrial warehouses, they work in cons...

The coal tender was the second major component to be worked on. Already patched by the railways before coming out of regular service, the tender was stored for many years out in the open prior to its...

"I do not suggest that photographic observations should displace eye observations; on the contrary, I think that both eye and photographic observations ought to be made." Warren de la Rue 1873 By 18...

The Sydney International Exhibition opened the doors of its main building the 'Garden Palace' on 17 September 1879 and closed them seven months later. Many figures in colonial Sydney talked of the suc...

In 1977 the Industrial Design Council of Australia (IDCA) launched the Australian Design Award as a publicly visible way of recognising not only high quality but innovative Australian-designed product...

The Cyril Ruwald Collection consists of 1424 architectural plans and drawings including; diazo prints, pencil and ink drawings, blueprints, negative photo-prints, and monochrome photographs. Donated...

The Holden 48-215 was not only the first mass produced car made in Australia but also the one on which the company's success was built. The beginnings of this iconic Australian car can be traced back...

A major project to overhaul the Sydney Observatory?s 11.5" Schroeder Telescope has been recently completed. It coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Observatory in 2009. The key aim was to retur...

The Signal Station building (often referred to as the Signal Masters Cottage), on Observatory Hill, was both the private residence and work space for the Signal Master, and his family. Built on the fo...

This piece of cable from the Powerhouse Museum Collection may not be a rare item but it is part of an incredible story. It is a story of grand plans, human folly and triumph, advances in technology an...

The slide rule was developed and improved over a period of more than 300 years, and science and engineering design and construction would have been very difficult without its help. Nevertheless few, i...

Plastics have been described as "materials that can be moulded or shaped into different forms under pressure or heat". In the twentieth century the move away from natural raw materials to syntheticall...

One of the Museum's projects has been condition reporting, treating and re-housing the early photography collection of daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. The daguerreotype was one of the earliest forms o...

Before the 18th century hands, feet or other body parts were most commonly used to massage the body. After this date hand cranked and electrical vibration devices were introduced to supplement massage...

Mervyn Victor Richardson developed the Victa rotary lawn-mower in August 1952. It was not the first rotary lawn-mower ever developed, but it was cheaper, lighter and easier to use than the mowers that...

Design consultants like BlueSky can't be an expert in every type of product. For this reason, extensive research is an essential part of the design process. BlueSky designers work with the client and...

Tradition in Samoa dictated that leadership of the islands was to be invested in a hereditary chief, but in the 1880s these claims to power were anything but certain. Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived...

What is an innovation? Something useful that's resulted from a new idea. 'Something' could be a thing you can touch and see, or a process for making or doing things, or even a system for organising...