Powerhouse Parramatta Opens Saturday in Western Sydney With Five Exhibitions and a 23-Day Festival

Powerhouse Parramatta, a new museum in Parramatta in western Sydney, Australia, opens to the public on Saturday. The $915 million addition to western Sydney's skyline opens with five new exhibitions and a 23-day festival.

The building's white lattice exoskeleton is composed of 1,300 individual pieces and wraps 30,000 square metres of interior space. Built from 12,000 tonnes of steel and encasing two towers, the exoskeleton allows massive column-free exhibition spaces up to 18 metres in height, including the largest in Australia. The building was designed by Moreau Kusunoki and Genton.

Inside, a glass facade and abundant natural light are complemented by a palette of creams, white and light greys, including interior walls covered in a pale, textured render made from 600,000 crushed oyster shells, locally and sustainably sourced. Wide corridors flanking the exhibition spaces are lined with chairs and lounges overlooking the city, the landscape and the Parramatta River below.

The project has a controversial history. Since the Parramatta outpost was announced in 2014, a group of dissenters led by former staff and trustees has lamented what they see as neglect of the museum's Ultimo site in favour of a new infrastructure project, and what they say is a shift away from the museum's core business towards contemporary art and events.

The $915 million price tag has also come under scrutiny, culminating in a New South Wales Treasury investigation into allegations over the museum's governance and procurement practices. In late August, 10 weeks from the scheduled opening, chief executive Lisa Havilah was stood down while the investigation unfolded.

The 23-day opening festival includes performances, parties, talks, screenings and workshops, with 65 percent of the program free. When Guardian Australia visited last week, the space was crowded with installation crew in hi-vis, hard hats and steel-capped boots, with exhibitions in various states of readiness.

The five opening exhibitions include a tribute to space and flight, a celebration of the shopping mall, a children's exhibition themed around the dark, and a showcase of British designer Es Devlin. Features include secret doorways and dramatic reveals, a mirror maze, a copse of Christmas firs, a massive replica meteorite taking up an entire exhibition space, a recreation of the historic Roselands shopping mall fountain, a restored 1920s elevator, and a rainbow-hued walk-in installation by American light artist James Turrell. More than 1,600 objects from the 500,000-strong collection are on show, supplemented by around as many loans.

Task Eternal, the flagship opening exhibition and the only one adults must pay to enter, at $30 or $20 concession with those 16 and under free, takes over the main hall of 2,000 square metres with 18-metre-high ceilings. Inspired by US science fiction author Ted Chiang's short story Tower of Babylon, it includes a zigzagging tower visitors ascend and descend, and is structured around four acts exploring the history and technology of air and space.

Hero items include delicate sketches by Leonardo da Vinci, a boomerang collected from Burramatta/Parramatta in the early 19th century, a boilerplate Apollo command module from the 1960s, and the spacesuit worn by Leonard Nimoy's Spock in Star Trek. Aircraft include the 19th-century flying rigs of Australian aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave, there is an entire room of engines, a Skylark research rocket deployed at Woomera in the 1970s, and a fully functional retro Rocket Playground from the 1960s.

At the top of the tower is a ganzfeld installation by US light artist James Turrell, accessible on a special ticket at $40 for adults and $10 for children. Eight viewers at a time enter a room with curved walls and a shifting cycle of coloured light, which induces the kind of disorientation experienced by pilots at certain altitudes and atmospheres.