By 1975, the block known as Pioneer Park was almost clear of buildings. Only one remained. According to a note in a Fremantle Society newsletter in 1975, everyone – Government, City Council and Society – had all agreed that it should be removed so that the whole area could become the Park intended for the use of residents and visitors to Fremantle.
Then, in 1978, Council decided it needed an art gallery, and retained the building for that specific purpose. Not much later, it decided to move the (large) City collection to the Fremantle Arts Centre.
(The City now seems to feel no need to have a Fremantle Art Gallery – nor a Fremantle Museum. The City’s art collection and whatever used to be in the Fremantle Museum is all now in store in Canning Vale – at great cost, and almost never seen.)
Meanwhile, back in what was supposed to a people’s park, the Building remains …
It’s not a heritage building, not from the Gold Rush period. It’s an ordinary office building from 1921.
It’s not in good condition. Like a lot of buildings in the West End, it’s exposed below ground level to the high water table and has water in the basement. It was also apparently falling apart above ground, and has, at great expense, had an ‘exo-skeleton’ added, in an attempt to stop the walls falling outwards, I suppose.
It happens to have housed a puppet theatre until recently. This is irrelevant to the building, to its situation and condition. A puppet theatre could be housed anywhere with a hall and some sort of stage. Traditional seaside Punch and Judy shows were housed in a portable structure about one metre square, and entertained people for hundreds of years.
The issue of ‘saving’ the puppet theatre is separate from the question of keeping the building.
Spare Parts should be housed (and probably will be) in a place that’s suitable for its requirements.
The Stateships building should be removed and Pioneer Park given at last to the citizens.
