Primary contact
500 Harris Street, UltimoSydney, New South Wales 2007
The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS) was founded in 1880 as the Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum following the highly-successful Sydney International Exhibition of 1879.
It became a separate government agency in 1945 through the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Act 1945 (NSW). The Act identified two main collecting areas:
The museum is a publicly funded institution governed by the Act and a board of Trustees. It is a statutory body in the New South Wales Department of Justice, responsible to the Minister for the Arts.
Institutional archives dating from 1880 include correspondence files, minute books, stockbooks, papers of Directors and scientific staff, exhibition records, audiovisual productions, photographs, oral history tapes, museum publications, etc.
Collected archives include: