‘Mean and short-sighted’: How the death of this Sydney institution shocked an ABC star

April 15, 2026 — 11:40am

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The Australian Design Centre (ADC) is to close its doors just 12 weeks shy of its 62nd birthday after last-ditch protests to government went unheeded, marking the demise of the state’s only dedicated craft and design hub.

At the end of March ADC’s Darlinghurst shopfront closed, its exhibition programming having wound up in February. In a grim hand-me-down economy, exhibition furniture and professional tools are being donated to other struggling arts organisations.

The last weeks of the Australian Design Centre represents one of the biggest disruptions to the inner city’s cultural shopfront landscape since the closure of the Australian Centre for Photography’s Paddington gallery a decade ago.

“I’m surprised that something with such obviously unique value to the community could not be saved,” television producer Andrew Denton, a Surry Hills resident, told this masthead. “It seems both mean and short-sighted; an unnecessary impoverishment of this city’s cultural life.”

Denton was among those who protested the cutbacks after the board announced in October it had insufficient funds to cover its overheads beyond mid-year. In a world of fast design........

© The Sydney Morning Herald