Country Always

Caring for Country

A Corner of the Empire

The Garden Palace

The Holding Pen

The Agricultural Hall

Regional Networks

Across New South Wales

A Museum of Doing

Technological Museum

Expanding Stories

Evolution of the Castle Hill site from botanical research station to Museum Discovery Centre

Transforming the Tramsheds

Powerhouse Stage 1 and the Harwood Building

A Symbol in Time

Sydney Observatory

Ongoing Transformations

Powerhouse Ultimo

Bill Buckle – Automotive Engineer and Dealer

Object Lesson

Applied Arts and Sciences

Defining the terms in the 21st century

Powerhouse Renewal

A transformative renewal program across four sites

We Rise

Blak Powerhouse

Powerhouse-1 Mission Launch to the ISS

An initiative of the Powerhouse: Future Space program

2024

Exoskeleton

Powerhouse Parramatta

Sydney Science Festival

Across Sydney27 Sep—4 Oct

2023

Stories

Bill Buckle – Automotive Engineer and Dealer

Object Lesson

‘This is the story of the Dart Goggomobil.’

Bill Buckle

Open two seat, full size mini car with red painted fibreglass boy on a German built body and mechanics. — Goggomobil 'Dart' car
Object No. 89/1523-1

I came back home, found out as much about fibreglass as I could, and thought it was a feasible proposition to build a sports car in Australia.

Between 1957 and 1961, Bill Buckle produced the Goggomobil Dart bodies in Sydney. Australian Goggomobil cars were fitted with lightweight fibreglass bodies in place of their German counterparts’ steel bodies.

Figure sits at a desk writing on an illuminated surface, at a birds eye view

Object Lesson

Object Lesson is a Powerhouse digital content series that upends and inverts the legacy of a set of lesson cards held in the collection since 1880. Named for English educator. Elizabeth Mayo’s 1831 publication Lessons on Objects, the series is underpinned by a desire to learn more about the objects in our collection from people and communities who have special relationships with them.

‘Knowledge stems not only from teacher or institution or object alone — but at the intersection of all.’
Agatha Gothe-Snape, Powerhouse artistic associate