The East Perth Power Station building has a strong history in Western Australia. Celebrating this history and retaining and adapting the heritage site for contemporary use are pivotal to the project design.

The Power Station building (and some equipment) is listed on the State Register of Heritage Places and is one of only a handful of surviving large-scale utilities from pre-World War One. It includes remnant equipment believed to be unique in the world because it contains the five different stages of power-generation technology that occurred in the 20th Century. The project area itself is one of the few remaining industrial sites on the Swan River and in the former East Perth industrial district.

The area and locality of the Power Station is also of cultural significance to local Aboriginal people. The area is listed on the Department of Indigenous Affairs’ Aboriginal Sites Register and classified as an ethnographically recorded camp and meeting place. This includes a ‘fringe camp’, where many Aboriginal visitors to Perth camped, under the protection of the former Bunbury railway bridge.

 

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