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The Western NSW town of Lightning Ridge will soon be home to a national Opal Museum designed by Australia’s most celebrated architect Glenn Murcutt, and his architect wife, Wendy Lewin. Federal, state and local governments will fund Stage One of the proposed $35 million museum showcasing the human, geological and palaeontological history of the opal fields.

Lightning Ridge has the world’s largest deposit of black opals, and boasts rare opalised fossils from the age of dinosaurs. Among the treasures which will be displayed at the museum are the remains of a 110-million-year-old raptor named Lightning Claw, which measured seven-metres long and had killing talons.

The Opal Museum is expected to “revolutionise” tourism in a region already known for being a world leader in opal-related knowledge, training and certification, with the move gaining interest in Spain, Italy and Japan. The design for the partly subterranean off-grid Opal Museum features an array of thermal chimneys, which will channel hot desert air over a system of water-filled plates.

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