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Garage/workshops/office
Jack Kent, 1991:
EXISTING BUILDINGS ON VICTORIA QUAY
BUILDING NUMBER 14
GARAGE/WORKSHOP/OFFICE
HISTORY
These series of garages, workshops and offices were constructed in 1957-58 to provide accommodation for particular port related trades. They included painter, joiner, sail maker, welder and turner. Vehicle parking was also allowed for in this building, together with basic staff amenities.
The turners accommodation on the east of the building was not fully completed until 1964-65, following the demolition of the 'lumpers pick-up' .
CONSTRUCTION
The building is a simple series of timber framed bays with the western bay having a first floor built in timber. Timber trusses and purlins support a corrugated asbestos-cement roof and the external walls are clad in corrugated pressed metal. The ground floor is a concrete slab.
ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The simple form and construction of the garage/workshop/office makes a well proportioned building, and together with its functional component has certain aesthetic value. However, this moderate aesthetic value is greatly increased when the building is considered within its streetscape context. Here, there is variety of architectural forms and construction, of similar scale and character creating a narrow street rich in wharf activities.
The building's fabric, which is principally intact, is representational of wharf architecture of the same period. It is lightweight in construction, quick to erect, and used materials that were easily available.
The building still demonstrates wharf related activities, some of which are the original uses.
Historically, the building forms part of a group that remain as physical evidence of the ongoing change in port operations when modernisation of the port progressed from relying on predominantly manual labour to the increase in machinery, its maintenance and repair.
References and Links
Hutchison, David, Jack Kent, Agnieshka Kiera, Russell Kingdom, Larraine Stevens, Tanya Suba, 1991, Victoria Quay and its Architecture its History and Assessment of Cultural Significance, City of Fremantle; Part II: Jack Kent: 'Architectural evaluation of existing buldings and assessment of their cultural significance', 54 pp.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 19 November, 2022 and hosted at freotopia.org/port/garage.html (it was last updated on 10 January, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.