Fremantle Arts Centre
Encyclopedia
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
.
The building was built using convict labour between 1861 and 1868 and was used as a psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
, initially called the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum, and later known as the Asylum for the Criminally Insane.
It is located opposite the Fremantle Leisure and Aquatic Centre and also near two schools: John Curtin College of the Arts
John Curtin College of the Arts
John Curtin College of the Arts is a high school with student intake from the greater Fremantle area, in Western Australia. The school currently has over 1100 students attending....
(formerly Fremantle Boys School) and CBC Fremantle
CBC Fremantle
Christian Brothers College Fremantle is a private, Catholic, day school for boys situated in Fremantle, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia...
.
Current activities
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
, John Butler
John Butler (musician)
John Charles Wiltshire-Butler or John Charles Butler is an Australian musician, songwriter, record label owner and producer...
, The Waifs
The Waifs
The Waifs are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 by Josh Cunningham , and sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson...
, Morcheeba
Morcheeba
Morcheeba are a British band, mixing influences from trip hop, rock, R&B, and pop.They have produced 7 albums since 1995, two of which reached the UK top ten.-Biography:...
, The Black Keys
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S....
, Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly (musician)
Paul Maurice Kelly is an Australian rock music singer-songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player. He has performed solo, and has led numerous groups, including the Dots, the Coloured Girls, and the Messengers. He has worked with other artists and groups, including associated projects Professor...
, Cat Empire
The Cat Empire
The Cat Empire are an Australian ska and jazz band formed in 1999. Core members are Harry James Angus , Will Hull-Brown , Jamshid "Jumps" Khadiwhala , Ollie McGill , Ryan Monro and Felix Riebl...
, Angus & Julia Stone
Angus & Julia Stone
Angus & Julia Stone are an Australian brother-sister duo from Newport on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Forming in 2005, their parents are both musical and played as a folk duo before Angus and Julia were born. At very young ages, their father introduced them to music and encouraged them to join...
, Paul Weller
Paul Weller
Paul Weller is an English singer-songwriter. Starting with the band The Jam , Weller then went on to branch out musically to a more soulful style with The Style Council...
, Tegan and Sarah, Josh Pyke
Josh Pyke
Josh Pyke is an Australian singer-songwriting musician.-Beginnings and Feeding the Wolves :Josh Pyke was in his first band by age 12 and played his first performance in front of 650 parents and students at his primary school graduation. Playing guitar and initial song writing efforts came aged 14...
, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Stereophonics
Stereophonics
The Stereophonics are a Welsh rock band now living in turners x that formed in 1992 in the village of Cwmaman in Cynon Valley, Wales. The band currently comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Kelly Jones, bassist and backing vocalist Richard Jones, drummer Javier Weyler, guitarist and backing...
, The Polyphonic Spree
The Polyphonic Spree
The Polyphonic Spree is a choral symphonic pop rock band from Dallas, Texas that was formed in 2000 by Tim DeLaughter. The band's sound relies on a variety of vocal and instrumental color by featuring a choir, flute, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, cello, percussion, piano, guitars, bass, drums,...
, Eskimo Joe
Eskimo Joe
Eskimo Joe is an Australian alternative rock band formed by Stuart MacLeod on guitars, Joel Quartermain on drums and guitar and Kavyen Temperley on bass guitar and vocals, in East Fremantle, Western Australia in 1997....
, Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab for Cutie
Death Cab for Cutie is an American alternative rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington in 1997. The band consists of Ben Gibbard , Chris Walla , Nick Harmer and Jason McGerr ....
, Pete Murray, Swell Season, The Herd, Stray Cats
Stray Cats
Stray Cats are an American Rockabilly band formed in 1980 by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer , upright bassist Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York. The group had numerous hit singles in the UK, Australia and the U.S...
, Sarah Blasko
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Sarah Elizabeth Blaskow , is an Australian singer-songwriter and musician. After fronting Sydney-based band Acquiesce from the mid-1990s, Blasko developed her solo career from 2002. In 2007, she won the 'Best Pop Release' for What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have at the ARIA Music Awards, which...
, The Indigo Girls
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, Xavier Rudd
Xavier Rudd
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, Weddings Parties Anything
Weddings Parties Anything
Weddings Parties Anything were an Australian folk rock band formed in 1984 in Melbourne and continuing until 1998. Their name came from The Clash song and musicologist Billy Pinnell described their first album as the best Australian rock debut since Skyhooks' Living in the '70s.-Formation and...
, Damien Rice
Damien Rice
Damien Rice is an Irish singer-songwriter, musician and record producer who plays guitar, piano, clarinet and percussion....
, Lucky Oceans
Lucky Oceans
Lucky Oceans is a pedal steel guitarist and a former member of Country/Western Swing band Asleep at the Wheel. He is now a broadcaster in Perth, Western Australia with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
and Groove Armada
Groove Armada
Groove Armada is an English electronic music duo from London, England comprising Andy Cato and Tom Findlay. They are perhaps best known for their singles "I See You Baby" and "Superstylin'"...
.
Funding is received from the City of Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
, and the WA State Government's Department of Culture and the Arts.
History
The imposing building on the 2.4 hectares (5.9 acre) site overlooks the harbour city and was the largest public building constructed by convicts in the State after the Fremantle PrisonFremantle Prison
Fremantle Prison is a former Australian prison located in The Terrace, Fremantle, in Western Australia. The site includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, tunnels, and prisoner art...
which had been built in the 1850s. The design, in colonial gothic
Australian architectural styles
Australian architectural styles, like the revivalist trends which dominated Europe for centuries, have been primarily derivative.-Background:...
style was by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Henderson
Edmund Henderson
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Yeamans Walcott Henderson KCB was an officer in the British Army who was Comptroller-General of Convicts in Western Australia from 1850 to 1863, Home Office Surveyor-General of Prisons from 1863 to 1869, and Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, head of the London...
, the Comptroller-General of Convicts
Comptroller General of Convicts (Western Australia)
The Comptroller General of Convicts was the head of the convict establishment in Western Australia.The office existed from 1850, when Western Australia first became a penal colony, until 1872, four years after penal transportation to Western Australia had ceased.-History:Western Australia's first...
in Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
, and built to accommodate 50 people. Over the next thirty years a number of additions were incorporated, principally designed by government architect George Temple-Poole
George Temple-Poole
George Thomas Temple-Poole was a British architect and public servant, primarily known for his work in Western Australia from 1886....
.
The Asylum continued to operate for its intended purpose through to the early 1900s, when following two suspicious deaths which provoked comment from the local press, the Government set up an enquiry which concluded with a recommendation that the building "...be demolished as unfit for purpose for which it is now used." Patients were then moved to alternative locations in the metropolitan area between 1901 and 1905.
The building was used shortly after for housing for homeless women and later as a midwifery school. Until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
it was known as the Old Women's Home. During World War II it became the headquarters for the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
armed services based in Western Australia, who built the asbestos-clad laundry building on the north-east corner of the site.
After the war the Arts Centre building was used for a time as an annexe of Fremantle Technical School, and in 1957, the State Education Department proposed its demolition in order to use the land as playing fields for the adjacent John Curtin High School. A public outcry and opposition campaign led by the Mayor of Fremantle, Sir Frederick Samson
Frederick Samson
Sir William Frederick Samson was a businessman and long-term Mayor of Fremantle, Western Australia....
halted the demolition. After many years of lobbying for State and Federal government funding, a major restoration project commenced in 1970 and since 1972 it has housed the Western Australian Maritime Museum (now relocated to Victoria Quay), and Fremantle Arts Centre.
In 2001, the City of Fremantle adopted the Fremantle Arts Centre Conservation Plan, a guide for its conservation. In January 2007, conservation works were completed with the gable finials on the west façade restored to their original state, following their demolition at the turn of the 20th century.
On 20 July 2009 it was announced that the Immigration Museum will be closed as it was the least visited of the states museums, items in the collection will be placed into storage for conservation though items on loan will be returned. Amid criticism for the closure due to the WA Government Budget reductions Arts Minister John Day
John Day (Australian politician)
The Hon. John Howard Dadley Day MLA is the current Member for Kalamunda in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. He was elected to the 34th Parliament in 1993 and has been re-elected at every state election since.- Early life :...
said that the closure will allow for the expansion of Fremantle Arts Centre.
The US Navy's laundry building was recommended for demolition by the Western Australian Museum
Western Australian Museum
The Western Australian Museum is the state museum for Western Australia.The Western Australian Museum has seven main sites: two in Perth within the Perth Cultural Centre, two in Fremantle , and one each in Albany, Geraldton, and Kalgoorlie-Boulder...
(who used it as a restoration laboratory 1970-2005).