Parliament House, Perth
Parliament House, Perth | |
---|---|
Perth, Western Australia | |
Country | Australia |
Coordinates | 31°57′06″S 115°50′50″E / 31.9517°S 115.8471°E |
Current tenants | Parliament of Western Australia |
Construction started | 1902 |
Completed | 1904 |
Opened | 28 July 1904 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | John Grainger and Hillson Beasley |
Architecture firm | Public Works Department |
![]() Parliament House is located in West Perth, Western Australia, and faces the Barracks Arch across the Mitchell Freeway near the western terminus of St Georges Terrace. | |
Type | State Registered Place |
Designated | 24 September 2004 |
Reference no. | 2239 |
Parliament House, Perth is located on Harvest Terrace in West Perth, Western Australia. It is the home of the Parliament of Western Australia, including the Legislative Council (upper house) and Legislative Assembly (lower house).
History
Location
The
Design
An
Construction
Building of the first stage of Parliament House commenced in 1902.
When the assembly members trooped into the Council Chamber to hear the Commission read, the visitors had time to criticise the extraordinary colour scheme of the Assembly Chamber, count the hundreds of black swans swimming in the blue sea of carpet, comment on the dizzying height of the galleries, and draw comparisons – born of the wearying display of stained glass and coloured wood – between the general appearance of the Chamber and that of a glorified saloon …[1]
The eastern (city) wing was added between 1958 and 1964 at a cost of £416 500.[3] The eastern facade was designed on a Stripped Classical style. The building was extended to the south in 1978.
During the 1980s, uneventful proposals were put forward to extend the structure eastwards by covering the adjoining Mitchell Freeway, incorporating commercial development, and connecting the Parliament House precinct with St Georges Terrace.
The Lion and Unicorn statues originally located on the western side of Parliament House are from the Houses of Parliament, Westminster. The statues now located on the western façade are replicas, the replica unicorn and lion are known as Katherine and Digby respectively, with the original statues displayed inside the building. They were presented to the Parliament of Western Australia by the Empire Parliamentary Association and placed on the façade in 1936. The lion represents England and the unicorn symbolises Scotland.
Solidarity Park
In 1997, protesting union workers established a "Workers' Embassy" on vacant land opposite Parliament House, a site which was later reserved and named Solidarity Park by a subsequent Labor government.[4]
References
- ^ ISBN 0-7244-6862-5.
- ^ Beauchamp, David and Tibbits, G. R. John Harry Grainger, Engineer and Architect Archived 12 February 2013 at the Wayback Machine at 3rd Australasian Engineering Heritage Conference 2009
- ^ History of the building // The Parliament of Western Australia (www.parliament.wa.gov.au)
- ^ "Solidarity Park (The Workers' Embassy)". Heritage Perth website. Retrieved 21 May 2018
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)