Powerhouse

"It was a great challenge to be invited by the director, Terence Measham, to create an entire art and design concept for the restaurant. It was a wonderful opportunity to bring light and colour to a fairly dull space and envelope people in the feeling of a glowing, growing garden."

Ken Done, Sydney 1999

The Powerhouse Museum is one of Australia's premier cultural institutions, presenting innovative exhibitions on design, decorative arts, industry, science, technology, and social history. In 1993 the museum invited Ken Done to completely redesign its restaurant-cafe. The beautiful new Powerhouse Garden Restaurant was unveiled in March 1994.

The radiant hues of luxuriant foliage and perfect sky created a painting which both enhanced and defined the architectural space. Set within the highly technological exhibits and vistas of the museum, the garden theme reflected the human scale of the visitor. 

To complement and complete the scheme, Done painted the furnishings of the restaurant, created a trio of sculptural vases and designed a range of ceramics, manchester, staff uniforms and finishing touches such as wine bottle labels, menu covers and stationery.

Sadly, the Powerhouse Garden Restaurant has since closed to accommodate the necessary expansion of the museum's exhibition space, but in 2002, the Powerhouse Museum acquired Ken Done’s commercial art and design archive of more than 300 items. 

"As undoubtedly the most popular Australian designer of the twentieth century, and one of the few with an international reputation, Ken Done has a unique place in the history and development of Australian art. The quality and breadth of this archive will be of enormous importance for future researchers and historians of Australian artistic, cultural and social activity in the late twentieth century."

John McPhee, senior curator of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, Powerhouse Museum Press Release, Sydney 2002.