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Waiting room
Jack Kent, 1991:
EXISTING BUILDINGS ON VICTORIA QUAY
BUILDING NUMBER 4
WAITING ROOM
HISTORY
The Waiting Room (present use unknown, possibly a store) appears on a P. W. D. plan 26519 dated 1928 but not on PWD plan 17630 revision 1920. Its construction therefore is traced to between these dates. The windows and doors in the northern, brick elevation appear later than this period. It is possible then that the building was constructed with ' fashionable' elements c. 1928 or alterations, at least to the north elevation, have subsequently been made since its original construction.
CONSTRUCTION
The main body of the Waiting Room is of timber frame construction with a mono-pitch roof. The roof is pitched down from a brick parapet wall on the northern elevation. The remainder of the external walls are clad in weatherboards and the roof is corrugated pressed metal. A canopy is suspended from the parapet wall with asbestos cement sheet cladding to the soffit and fascia. The western end of the building is probably a later extension constructed to match the original weatherboard detailing.
ASSESSMENT OF CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The Waiting Room is a utilitarian building providing support accommodation to immigration activities and as such has historical significance. Its aesthetic value can be seen in terms of its utilitarian design - similar to railway and wharf architecture - and also how its materials and character are sympathetic to the other wharf buildings contributing to Victoria Quay's coherent townscape.
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/waitingroom.html (it was last updated on 27 April, 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.