Newspaper House
1933-34 - 125-131 St Georges Terrace, Perth, WA Back in the days before the internet when newspapers were the major means of distributing news to the populace, Newspaper House was one of the most well known - and busiest - buildings in the city centre. It was the publishing house of the West Australian newspaper, and Perth's afternoon newspaper, The Daily News. Both newspapers were printed on site in the basement. Here, you could get the latest edition of either newspaper before it hit the streets; you could order and pick up photographs that had been published in the paper, and lodge your classified advertisement.
Newspaper House was vacated in the mid-1980s for the ill-fated "Westralia Square" redevelopment which was eventually completed in 2012 under the name Brookfield Place. To make way for it, the newspaper's printing works and the rear facade facing Mounts Bay Road were demolished in 1990.
The editorial staff were temporarily relocated in rented office space nearby in St George's Terrace, and were later moved to the Osborne Park complex where the presses had been relocated. Initially under threat of demolition, Newspaper House was recognised as part of an important heritage precinct, and re-scheduled for preservation and refurbishment. In 1988, larger and more modern accommodation for the paper's printing presses was commissioned in Osborne Park. Ten years later, the editorial operations also
Official opening of Newspaper House new press on 5 January 1933. Photo: WA TV History
Newspaper House is a four storey steel framed office building (including an arcade of shops and a public hall) designed in the inter-war commercial palazzo style, with rendered walls and a stone central arch over the St George's Terrace entrance to the arcade, which led to the public hall. The building has an elaborate jarrah doorway with carved eucalyptus leaves and nuts.
The public hall, where business with the newspaper's customers was done, has a clerestory and galleries around the east, south and west sides on the first floor. Stairways lead to the galleries on the east and west sides, with terrazzo faced balustrades and timber handrails. The hall has high moulded terrazzo skirtings, timber panelled dado and Art Deco decorated supporting columns. Original furniture includes a jarrah seat, reading and writing slopes, a jarrah desk, ash trays and a World War One Honour Board. The hall is a rare interior which demonstrates the functioning of a 1930s newspaper.
Newspaper House is an integral part of City Square, Perth, a preserved streetscape of considerable heritage significance, comprising Old Perth Boys School, Perth Technical College, WA Trustees Buildings, Royal Insurance Buildings and Newspaper House. Together, this group of public and semi-public buildings represent civic design from the Colonial era to the Depression, and at street level provide an incomparable urbane character in the city.
