POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Front cover from catalogue of Wunderlich 'Patent Embossed Metal Ceilings'

Object No. A7437-31/2/3/1

This Wunderlich Catalogue has a brief preface containing a history of the company's ceilings and clarifying that the company is Australian owned and that its products are made in Australia. It also contains instructions for ordering ceilings and images of cornices; Ceiling mouldings and bosses; wall ventilators; capitals, Columns, plasters; ceiling designs, and windows finials and roofing tiles. While 1888 is best remembered as Australia's Centenary it was also an important date for the new company formed by Ernest and Alfred Wunderlich as this was the year they patented their new zinc ceiling process. By the end of the century demand for their lightweight ceilings and roofs had grown to the point where they were used in preference to plaster in practically every major museum, church, hospital, town hall, school, railway station across Australia. By 1895 Wunderlich had completed the installation of new machinery at its Redfern Plant, in Sydney, and their being able to increase output is probably one of the main reasons they began printing catalogues. These catalogues were initially targeted at regional areas and served as both a resume of the work they had performed and a list of styles and methods of installation provided by the company. They also served another purpose which was to try to expand Wunderlich's business into more remote areas as … the success of our work in every Colony of the Australasian Group, has naturally stimulated the parasitic, not to say piratic, habit in the incompetent mimic and the cheap copyist. Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator, April 2010 References Wunderlich Catalogue 1895 Wunderlich Catalogue 1899