[2] The Ultimo building, designed by Lionel Glendenning for the Australian Bicentenary in 1988, won the Sir John Sulman Medal for architecture.

[5] In September 1882, before the new museum could be opened a fire completely destroyed the Garden Palace, leaving the museum's first curator, Joseph Henry Maiden with a collection consisting of only the most durable artefacts including a Ceylonese statue of an elephant carved in graphite that had miraculously survived the blaze despite a 5-storey plunge.

[6] Maiden commenced rebuilding the collection, but for the subsequent decade the new museum found itself housed in a large tin shed in The Domain, a facility it shared with the Sydney Hospital morgue.

The new location placed the museum adjacent to the Sydney Technical College, and as such it was intended to provide material inspiration to the students.

As time passed, its name was changed to The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences and it also established branches in some of New South Wales' main industrial and mining centres, including Broken Hill, Albury, Newcastle and Maitland.

[citation needed] 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.

Workshops, library, storage and additional office space is located in the annexed tram sheds (still known in-house as "Stage One").

[8][9][10] However this plan was reviewed,[11] and an announcement from the NSW government in April 2017, suggested that the museum would stay in its current location.

The NSW Government promised to develop the new facility to international standards and engineered to present larger objects from the collection including the Catalina flying boat and Locomotive No.1[15] but proposals for lending the large items to different organisations across the state were in train since 2019,[16] and concern persisted about risks, logistics and decontextualisation of exhibits.

[17] The insecurity, the "deluge of controversy" and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage sector made planning extremely difficult.

[36] On 29 July 2020, the NSW government announced it had abandoned plans to relocate three of the Powerhouse Museum's biggest exhibits – the Boulton and Watt steam engine, the Locomotive No.

The design of the Parramatta venue was subsequently amended by reducing the proposed presentation floor space and researcher apartments, along with a greater setback to the river.

[43] In December 2023, Arts Minister John Graham announced that the Ultimo site would be closed from early February for up to three years, to allow for significant upgrades and redevelopment.

[44] The statement of significance for the Federation building says the Powerhouse played a "major part in the 20th-century development of the Ultimo/Pyrmont area and in the wider heritage conservation movement in NSW."

and it was part of the Darling Harbour Bicentennial citywide adaptation project, incorporated into "the transition of a major industrial location to a cultural, educational and tourism precinct".

[49] The most popular exhibit is arguably "The Strasburg Clock Model", built in 1887 by a 25-year-old Sydney watchmaker named Richard Smith.

[50] The Catalina Flying Boat Frigate Bird II on display in the museum is the one that Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor flew on the first flight from Australia to South America, in which he brought home 29 soldiers from New Guinea in 1945.

After involvement in the air-sea rescue squadron, the museum's specimen flew from the Rose Bay flying boat base across the Pacific Ocean on the first uncharted air route between Sydney and Valparaiso, Chile.

[51] The use of Catalina flying boats by Qantas Empire Airways after World War II was significant in the development of Australia's commercial air services.

[56] The EcoLogic exhibition focuses on the challenges facing the environment, human impact, and ways and technologies to stop this effect.

There is a house setup called Ecohouse where people toggle light variables to see the outcome as well as other energy use simulators and a 'ecological footprint' game.

[61] "Experimentations" is a science exhibition and contains interactive displays demonstrating aspects of magnetism, light, electricity, motion and the senses.

One of the most popular features is a plasma ball that shows the electric current through the glowing gas inside it, and changes when touched.

Built at a cost of A$12 million, this facility consists of seven huge sheds, including one the size of an aircraft hangar, within which are housed artefacts as a section of the mast of HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the spare wheel from Bluebird-Proteus CN7, the car Donald Campbell drove to break the world land speed record on Lake Eyre in the 1960s.