Like all cities, Perth is in a constant state of change, with new suburbs being developed and old infrastructure either being modified or replaced totally by new. For over a century Western Australia gained most of its wealth from mining, an industry renowned for going through periods of boom and bust. As the tide of the mining industry has ebbed and flowed, so also has the development of Perth, the state's capital city.
Boom times brought decades of rapid development when the old was quickly torn down and replaced by the new, often with scant regard for the heritage value of many perfectly fine and not neccessarily old buildings that were hastily demolished in the name of progress.
But just as some buildings fell victim to the wrecker's ball, others were just abandoned. Many had simply outlived their usefulness, but some fell victim to the boom and bust cycle so prevelant in Western Australia. Having been built or purchased by risk-taking entrepreneurs in boom times, when the bubble burst, either their owners went broke or their business ventures failed to realise their expected potential, and had to be abandoned - along with the structures built to house them.
Perth Entertainment Centre
Perth Entertainment Centre
Built jointly by the Perth television station Channel 7 and the Edgley Entertainment Group at a cost of $7 million, this building when opened in 1974 contained an 8,000 seat auditorium (at the time of its opening, it was the biggest covered auditorium in Australia), two cinemas, a restaurant and a tavern. With the opening of the Burswood Dome in 1988, its use fell into decline. The centre had been vacant since 2002. The centre was demolished in September/October 2011 and the site is being re-developed as part of the Perth City Link project which will see the city linked with Northbridge. The project includes sinking the inner-city rail line.
Perry Lakes Stadium
This outdoor arena in Underwood Avenue, Floreat Park, was constructed as the main stadium for the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which were hosted by the City of Perth. Dogged by controversy since the Games, planning blunders and the city's lack of foresight in failing to convert the Stadium into a venue for more viable sports such as football rendered the arena a ''white elephant'', eventually even being unfit for even its primary tenant - athletics. It's demolition commenced in July 2008, making way for a housing development.
Despite being run down for many years, Perry Lakes Stadium did have its time of glory, though after the 1962 Games it was filled to capacity on only one occasion - for a Rolling Stones concert in 1995. The venue had a 5,000-seat grandstand with open air perimeter seating for a further 25,000.
One of two Air Raid Bunkers at the Kwiniana Air-Warning Radar Station
Kwinana Air-Warning Radar Station
This facility was setup and operated during World War II as a part of the widespread defence of the region. All that remains now are the solid concrete enclosures that housed the machinery required to operate the radar systems and one section of tower remains. Personnel where billeted in accomodations in an area that now comprises a local golf course, in fact the golf clubhouse is believed to have been the former Officer's mess.
The Cockburn Sound area played an important role in Australia’s coastal defence system, comprising an almost land-locked Sound protected by the placement of coastal gun batteries on Garden Island, Rottnest Island and the mainland.
WA Museum Building
The five-floor Meagher Building of the Western Australian Museum was erected in Francis Street, Perth in the area at the back of what were then the State Library, the WA Art Gallery and the Jubilee Wing of the WA Museum.
Opened in 1971, the building was named after Sir Thomas William Meagher (1902–1979), who served as Lord Mayor of Perth. As chairman of trustees (1959-73) of the Western Australian Museum, Meagher worked closely with its director David Ride in the 1960s to develop the museum.
The multi-storey building was constructed to house laboratories, storage facilities, administration areas and exhibit spacehouses the Museum's administrative office and was also home to. The latter included a collection of vintage cars (now on display at Whateman Park) and a giant whale skeleton which filled the whole top floor. The skeleton had to be winched into place during construction of the building, and was sited before the roof was positioned.
The building during construction
The method used to construct the building was a first for Western Australia. The concrete for each floor was poured at ground level then jacked up in to its final height for completion. The building had to be closed in 2003 due to asbestos contamination and other occupational health and safety deficiencies. The Museum’s collection of about three million objects was moved to its Collection and Research Centre at Welshpool.
Demolition of the ground floor level in Septembver 2011
Demolishion began in April 2011 - it was demolished floor by floor inside a dust-proof canopy as a protective measure for the public and museum staff. The area has been landscaped to blend with the creative work being carried out in the Cultural Centre precinct by the East Perth Redevelopment Authority as an interim measure prior to the development of a new museum facility.
King Neptune, Atlantis Marine Park
Atlantic Park Park
Before Atlantis Marine Park opened in 1981, Two Rocks was a small fishing community 60 km north of Perth. The marine park was to be the first of many planned developments for the region that were to turn the Two Rocks/Yanchep area into the Riviera of the Southern Hemisphere. Seven bottlenose dolphins were captured from the local coastal population and were trained and maintained as performance animals at the park.
Unfortunately, many planned evelopments for the area never eventuated and the park soon began losing money. The birth of three female calves in 1988, coupled with changes in regulations for holding marine mammals, meant that Atlantis would have to construct a larger dolphin enclosure. The owners, The Tokyu Corporation of Japan, decided to cut their losses, and Atlantis was closed down in August 1990. King Neptune still keeps an eye towards the town centre of Two Rocks on a sandhill above the abandoned and now overgrown tunnels, bridges, exotic fauna and weathered statues of the former marine park.
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Above: the main dolphin pool. Below: the site of the pool today
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South Fremantle Power Station
Construction of the Power Station commenced in January, 1946. The South Fremantle site was chosen for its relatively close metropolitan population, its proximity to nearby railway facilities for the delivery of coal and the ease with which seawater could be utilised for the cooling system. Much of the plant was designed and manufactured in England, with skilled contractors were sent out from England to assemble the plant on site.
The four boilers 1, 2, 3 & 4 of 'A' Station were fired up in January 1951. Over 250 workers were employed at the power station during the 1950s. In 1954, a major fire at South Fremantle in the coal conveyor from the crusher house caused structural damage and resulted in a switch to oil fuel for the boilers. In the mid 1970s the plant was converted back to coal, which fuelled the station until its closure in 1985. By the 1980s production of electricity at South Fremantle had become uneconomical. The interconnected grid then was supplying electricity from power stations with more up-to-date machinery and closer to the coal source at Collie, Bunbury, Kwinana and Muja.
In September 1985, the South Fremantle Power Station closed after 34 years service and its four chimney stacks were demolished. The building's shell and remnants of numerous outbuildings and structure remain.
Emu Brewery
The Emu Brewery was an imposing Art Deco building erected between 1936 and 1938 on a block bounded by Mounts Bay Road, Spring Street and Mount Street. A brewery had existed on the site since 1837. The Emu Brewery was built from reinforced concrete and steel. A border frieze at the top of three of the building's sides depicted different stages in the brewing process. An image of the 1938 building featured on Emu beer labels for over fifty years.
This building continued to be used to produce Emu-brand beer until the late 1970s, when production was shifted to a new factory in Canning Vale. After this, the Emu Brewery building was left derelict until 1991 when it was demolished. Subsequent plans to build high-rise offices or apartments on the site have consistently fallen through, leading to the site being labelled "seemingly jinxed".
Swan View Railway Tunnel
The Swan View Tunnel, in John Forrest National Park, is a reminder of when the rail link to the rest of Australia once passed that way. It is the only railway tunnel ever constructed in Western Australia and is now part of the John Forrest Heritage Trail, which runs through the park.
The original Mahogany Creek line, built in 1884 between Midland to Mundaring, was so steep a deviation had to be built which included this tunnel. Cut through solid rock, the tunnel was completed in 1895 at a cost of about £12,000.
Shortly after the opening of the new line in 1896, engine crews began complaining about problems being experienced while passing through the tunnel. Following a number of accidents caused through ventilation problems, it was decided to build a tunnel bypass on the northern side. The Mahogany Creek line continued to be used until the Avon Valley dual gauge railway came into full operation. The line closed on February 13, 1966.
Although the trains are now long gone, the old railway alignment remains, clearly delineated by the embankments, bridges and the tunnel.
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East Perth Power Station
The soon-to-be redeveloped East Perth Power Station is located beside the Swan River some 2km from Perth’s Central Business District. It is one of the few remaining industrial sites on the Swan River and in the former East Perth industrial district. The Power Station was constructed between 1913 and 1916 by the Western Australian State Government, which announced that the facility would generate all the electricity needed in the Perth Metropolitan area. The site of East Perth was chosen because coal could easily be delivered there by rail (the line crosses the river nearby) and because the enormous quantities of cooling water required by the condensing plant could easily be drawn from the Swan River. The station was decommissioned and closed in December 1981, as more advanced and cheaper methods of electricity generation made the facility redundant.
Central Government Office Buildings Complex
Described as some of Australia’s finest and most dramatic free classical style buildings, the Central Government Office group of buildings includes the original General Post Office (1889), the Treasury Department (1874), the Lands Department (1893), and the Titles Office (1897). They were designed by state governement architects GT Poole and RR Jewell. The Old Treasury Building, the Government's first office building, is connected to the Supreme Court by a tunnel under St Georges Terrace. The buildings began losing their occupants in the 1980s. In 1996, the Old Treasury Building was the last of the group to be abandoned.
The State Government's vision for the St George’s Cathedral Heritage Precinct Area includes a $580 million redevelopment of the Old Treasury Buildings site, including a new 29,000sqm 35 storey office tower and a boutique six star hotel in the heritage listed buildings; demolition of the 1970s Law Chambers Building to enable development of a new City of Perth Library in the Lands Titles Building; full refurbishment of the Public Trustee Building to deliver a 8,000sqm office facility; and underground parking to service all the buildings.
Legacy Lookout
When the fourteen story office building Dumas House was built atop Mt Eliza opposite the entrance to King Park in 1965, it was to be the first of five similar buildings to house a variety of Government departments close to Parliament House. The politicians could cope with one, but drew the line at five.
 They had two concerns: increased traffic caused by the first building was such that the traffic for five buildings would have been unbearable, and they feared that five buildings on such a prominent site would give the appearance of 'dominance by the bureaucracy' - a "big brother" complex.
One thing that didn't get dropped - not right away, at least - was a public gallery on the top floor which included a cafe and a lookout. The lookout opened with much fanfare, and was called Legacy Lookout as proceed from admissions were donated to Legacy. The panoramic vistas of the city and Swan River had photographers snapping wildly.
The lookout was popular for a while, but lookouts are not the sorts of places that locals frequent, and Perth was not a major tourist destination, and by the mid 1980s, the need for more office space by the Public Works Dept. and dwindling patronage led to the lookout's eventual closure.
Carine TAFE
Carine College of Technical and Further Education must have had the shortest lifespan of any educational institution in Australia. The college in Marmion Avenue, Carine was opened in 1979 as one of two campuses of North Metropolitan College of TAFE (the other was in Balga). Following the reconfiguration of technical and further education in Australia in the mid-1980s and the construction of the Joondalup campus commencing in 1989, Carine TAFE became superfluous. At the beginning of 2002, the complex was closed, with its hospitality centre moving to Joondalup. The college buildings were left abandoned until their demolition in 2011.
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