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Museum of Sydney [MoS]

The Museum of Sydney is built on the site of the earliest foundations of British colonisation in Australia. Here, in 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip built the first Government House – the home, offices and seat of authority for the first nine Governors of New South Wales. In 1983, archaeologists unearthed the original footings of the house. They had remained preserved since 1845 when the whole complex had been demolished to allow the extension of the streets in that part of the city to the newly-constructed Circular Quay.

In 1982, before the investigation and archaeological excavation began, a car park and two blocks of empty terrace housing occupied half of the site. They had been built in the latter half of the nineteenth century and had been used variously as offices, dwellings and in some instances, as nurses' quarters for Sydney Hospital staff. Excavation of the site in 1983 revealed increasing evidence of the remains of the original house, and, galvanised by public opinion for the preservation of the remains, the NSW Government committed itself in October 1983 to conserving the site. In 1988 an international design competition (with a total of 74 design submissions) was held for an integrated development of the entire city block. This would include a commercial office development, the in situ conservation of the first Government House remains, and the provision of a commemorative museum that would provide an interpretive context for revealing the history and significance of the site. The design competition was subsequently abandoned and the architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall was selected after an informal second-stage competition to undertake the commission. The outcome was a five-part complex comprising of:

— Museum of Sydney
— First Government House Plaza (open-air public space, includes the outline of the original Government House building marked out in the paving pattern)
— Governor Phillip Tower (40 storeys, 745ft/226.5m) [completed in 1993]
— Governor Macquarie Tower (30 storeys, 477ft/145m) [completed in 1994]
— two (2) rows of terraces converted to boutique office space.

The Museum of Sydney was opened in 1995, with innovative gallery and exhibition space. The original Government House footings and their outline also form an integral part of the Museum of Sydney, and glass panels in the floor of the museum allow the footings and part of the dig to be viewed from above. At the western end of the square there is a sculptural installation by Janet Laurence and Fiona Foley entitled Edge of the Trees — a series of totem sculptures commemorating the original Eora people of the Sydney region, and the legacy of their dispossession. The museum also includes a 125-seat theatrette and a cafe.

MoS Website: www.hht.net.au/museums/mos/main

Writing Desk home page

Sources:
Proudfoot, Helen [et al]. Australia's First Government House. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, in conjunction with the NSW Dept. of Planning, 1990; Jahn, Graham. Sydney Architecture. Sydney: Watermark Press, 1997 pp.199-200.