State Buildings
The State Buildings, also known as the Old Treasury Buildings or the Central Government Offices, are three interconnected buildings with a long history of public uses, including post office, treasury, telephone exchange, police cell block, the office of the Premier and Cabinet and the office of the Public Works Department. Engineer in Chief C. Y. O’Connor had offices in the buildings during the 1890s.
The first section of the building, on Barrack Street was designed by Richard Roach Jewell and was built in 1875. Since then, the buildings have been remodelled, extended and redeveloped a number of times over the years, with the current stylistic features most influenced by architect and engineer George Temple Poole’s designs from 1889. Several engineering innovations have been present throughout the life of the buildings, although few have been retained today. An interesting feature still visible in the basement is the use of corrugated steel sheeting as permanent formwork for the concrete floor above - with secondary functions to secure and fireproof the police holding cells and government strong rooms.
In 1897, a new three storey wing was constructed, with a hydraulic passenger lift and machinery in the basement supplying water pressure to propel the elevator. The top floor of the new wing was occupied by the Railway Construction Banch of the Public Works Department.
By 1901, the General Post Office had one of the three new electric elevators installed in Perth, and for a short period Western Australia reportedly had more electric lifts than the whole of the rest of Australia.
The recent restoration and redevelopment of the State Buildings required significant input from structural and heritage engineers for works to stabilise the site foundations, mitigate corrosion of structural steelwork in the balconies and upgrade the seismic capacity of the building to comply with current Australian Standards design codes.
