Techniquest was founded in 1986 by Prof John Bettlestone along with several colleagues at Cardiff University. Initially located in a building previously used as gas showrooms at the intersection of St John and Duke streets in Cardiff city centre, the institution relocated to a pre-fabricated building in Cardiff Bay in 1988 before finally taking up its present situation near the Mount Stuart Graving Docks (NPRN 34267) and Shipbuilding Yard (NPRN 300173).

The present structure, which was designed by Ahrends, Burton & Koalek and completed in 1995, consists of a glass and steel rectangular pavilion with a curved metal roof. The structure reuses and incorporates the metal frame of the late-nineteenth-century (likely 1880s) Mount Stuart Dry Docks Workshops, which formerly occupied the southern end of the site, the northern end occupying part of the former location of the Sailors? Home.

(Sources: Techniquest website (www.techniquest.org); Victorian Society Tour Notes, VS01/16; Newman, Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan (London: 1995), p. 267)
A.N. Coward, RCAHMW, 30.07.2018