Archive for the 'Object of the week' Category

Esther Williams- Neptune’s other daughter

Published on June 19, 2013 by einard in Australian Dress Register, Fashion, Costume and Dress, leisure, Object of the week, Performing Arts, Sport and Textiles. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .
95/298/1 Film costume, swimsuit, women's, satin / nylon / sequins, worn by Esther Williams or Edith Motridge as Annette Kellerman in 'Million Dollar Mermaid', designed by Helen Rose, made by MGM Studios, USA, 1951-1952. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

95/298/1 Film costume, swimsuit, women’s, satin / nylon / sequins, worn by Esther Williams or Edith Motridge as Annette Kellerman in ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’, designed by Helen Rose, made by MGM Studios, USA, 1951-1952. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Despite being a huge star for MGM in the 1940s and 50s, Esther Williams’ most famous connection to Australia is arguably her role in the film Million Dollar Mermaid where she portrayed the early life of Annette Kellerman.

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Suburbia, apartmentia, adapturbia

Published on June 17, 2013 by Charles Pickett in Architecture, Architecture and Urban Design, climate change, Design and Designers, Environment, Object of the week, objects and Sydney. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , .
Nelsons Ridge

Nelsons Ridge housing estate, photo by Marinco Kojdanovski 2012

Are baby-boomers responsible for Sydney’s unaffordable housing? It’s becoming a common theme of the property media with story headings like ‘Boomers put super squeeze on first home buyers’. And similar arguments are being made in the planning and architecture world.

Former NSW Government Architect Chris Johnson: ‘The big issue right now for Sydney is the pendulum swing from low density detached housing to more urban apartment living.…With a growing army of ageing baby boomers wanting to protect suburbia, Sydney needs a new swat squad of younger urban dwellers to support the new apartmentia’.
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Cobb and Co coach

Published on June 12, 2013 by Margaret Simpson in Object of the week and transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
Cobb and Co. coach. Powerhouse Museum collection. H3875.

Cobb and Co. coach. Powerhouse Museum collection. H3875.

When most people think of travel by horse-drawn coach in Australia, during the nineteenth century, the name which immediately springs to mind is Cobb and Co.  So who was Cobb and Co? The Cobb and Co Telegraph Line of Royal Mail Coaches, as they were properly known at the time, was formed in 1853 by Freeman Cobb in Victoria to operate horse-drawn mail and passenger coaches between Melbourne and the nearby goldfields. However, under James Rutherford’s management from 1861, the company quickly established its supremacy over other coaching lines and spread to other states. Cobb and Co. provided Australia’s first wide-spread public transport system throughout the country.

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Botanical illustration from the early Museum

Published on June 5, 2013 by Lynne McNairn in Environment, Object of the week and objects. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .


Botanical illustration of 'Tristania laurina (Swamp Mahogany) by Agard Hagman

This painting is another botanical illustration by Agard Hagman from 1887.

The first curator of the Museum of Applied and Sciences was the botanist Joseph Maiden who later became Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens. In 1887 Australia’s natural resources were little explored. A major focus for the museum during it’s early years was the collection of Australian plants and the investigation of their potential for commercial purposes. During the late 1880s many drawings were commissioned from Agard Hagman.
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The Big Trousers has a new friend

Published on June 3, 2013 by Charles Pickett in Architecture, Architecture and Urban Design, Design and Designers, New Acquisitions and Object of the week. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .
CCTV model

Powerhouse Museum collection: Architectural model, China Central TV Headquarters, designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of OMA, ECADI, Arup, England, made by Micromodel, Beijing, China, 2004-2008. Gift of Arup Sydney.

Thanks to Arup Sydney we acquired a model of the China Central TV headquarters in Beijing. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA, its a sophisticated and controversial attempt to reinvent the office tower. Architects, journos and others have debated its pros and cons at length.

But in Beijing they can’t be fussed with that. To taxi-drivers, commuters and all manner of smarty-pants, Rem’s masterpiece is just the Big Trousers.

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Sydney’s public transport – Ferries

Published on May 29, 2013 by Margaret Simpson in Object of the week and transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .
Model of the Sydney ferry, Lady Woodward, of 1970. Powerhouse Museum collection. Gift of State Transit Sydney Ferries, 1993. 93/373/1

Model of the Sydney ferry, Lady Woodward, of 1970. Powerhouse Museum collection. Gift of State Transit Sydney Ferries, 1993. 93/373/1

 

The ferries of Sydney are as synonymous to tourists and locals alike as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Ferries provided Sydney with its earliest public transport system. Over 20 years before steam railways began here in 1855, Sydney was using steam ferries to carry passengers, goods, vehicles and livestock across and around the harbour. Ferry services enabled suburban development on the harbour foreshores by taking Sydneysiders to and from work during the week and to picnic grounds on the weekends.

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TR-1 The World’s First Transistor Radio

Published on May 27, 2013 by Geoff Barker in Object of the week. 0 Comments
H5580-1 Radio, portable

H5580-1 Radio, portable TR-1 radio receiver, plastic / metal, designed by Painter, Teague & Petertil, made by Regency Division IDEA Inc, USA, 1954-1956

This Regency TR-1 transistor radio was one of the earliest portable radios imported into Australia. It is significant for the way it combines science, design, and culture: the solid state physics that led to the development of the transistor; the aesthetics and functionality of the plastic radio body; and the portability that took radio out of the home and made listening to it more often an individual experience rather than a group activity.

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Archaeology Week – the Powerhouse Museum in Greece

Published on May 25, 2013 by Paul Donnelly in Archaeology and Object of the week. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
The author, Paul Donnelly collecting pottery on the survey, November 2012. Photo Meg Danes

The author, Paul Donnelly collecting pottery on the survey,
November 2012. Photo:Meg Danes

Archaeology and the Powerhouse Museum go back a long way. The most obvious examples are exhibitions focussing on archaeological material including ‘1000 Years of the Olympic Games‘, ‘The Great Wall of China‘, and the recent, ‘Spirit of Jang-in‘ from Korea. Less well known is the Museum’s participation and support of archaeological excavations over the past four decades, with the most recent being the revived excavations at Zagora, on the island of Andros in Greece.

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Ford to close in Australia: an Australian icon, the 1965 Ford Falcon XP

Published on May 24, 2013 by Margaret Simpson in Object of the week, Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Engines, Technology and transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
Sectioned XP Ford Falcon, Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of the Ford Motor Company of Australia, 1966. B1644

Sectioned XP Ford Falcon, Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of the Ford Motor Company of Australia, 1966. B1644

On 23 May, 2013, Australians were stunned to learn that Ford was to finish production of cars in Australia in 2016. The first Ford cars were sold in Australia in 1904 and a sales office opened in Melbourne in 1909, established by Ford of Canada. In the same year a local manufacturing plant was established in Victoria, at Geelong, 70 km SW of Melbourne. The Broadmeadows assembly plant, 16 km N of Melbourne, was opened in 1958 and an engine machine shop built in the expanded plant two years later. This enabled production to almost double from 50,000 to 90,000 units in 1961.

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Archaeology Week – Excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery: pondering the ethics of working with human remains

Published on May 23, 2013 by Melanie Pitkin in Archaeology, News and Object of the week. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .
Excavating the Wadi Mouth site at the South Tombs Cemetery © Melanie Pitkin.

Excavating the Wadi Mouth site at the South Tombs Cemetery © Melanie Pitkin.

I’ve recently returned from the 2013 Spring Season excavations at the South Tombs Cemetery in Tell el-Amarna, Middle Egypt. Tell el-Amarna, or more simply Amarna, is the ancient Egyptian city built by the ‘heretic’ King Akhenaten, husband of Queen Nefertiti, in c. 1350 BC. Occupied for less than 20 years, Amarna is where Akhenaten broke with 2000 years of tradition to “pursue his vision of a society dedicated to the cult of only one god, the power of the sun – the Aten” (Amarna Project). Continue reading ‘Archaeology Week – Excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery: pondering the ethics of working with human remains’