page_title: Council House, Perth
section_title: Design and reaction
hierarchical_section_title: Council House, Perth / Design and reaction
caption_attribution_description: en:Council House in en:Perth, en:Western Australia, lit up by LED lights installed on the window frames.
context_page_description: Council House is a 13-storey office building on St Georges Terrace in Perth, Western Australia. Located beside Stirling Gardens and Government House in the city's central business district, the 49.8-metre building was designed by Howlett and Bailey Architects and opened by The Queen in 1963, after Perth hosted the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games. For most of its history, it has served as the headquarters for the City of Perth.
  Built in a modernist style, the building has been the subject of vigorous public debate about its heritage value. Some parties, such as the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, consider the building to be an important example of modernist architecture in the city, whilst others consider it ugly. These conflicting views led to animosity in the 1990s, when the State Government refused to heritage list the property, and instead recommended its demolition. Despite this, the City of Perth opted to renovate the tower and keep it as its headquarters. Following this, the building was admitted to the State's Heritage Register.
context_section_description: Council House is constructed from concrete-encased steel frame, with lifts and service rooms located at its eastern end and a fire escape stairwell at its western end. Level 9 houses the distinctive circular Council Chamber, which features wood panelling and has been restored to largely its original state in the 1990s refurbishment (by contrast to most of the other levels of the building). The building is almost completely clad with glass, which led to criticism about its excessive air conditioning costs. The glass exterior of the building has T-shaped white sunbreakers superimposed in an alternating pattern across the building, coated with fine mosaic tiles. With the newly enclosed top floor, the building now has 13 levels above ground.
  The building, which was the favourite creation of its designer Jeffrey Howlett, has been called the most important example of modernist architecture in Perth and "one of the State's modernist icons". The building has been described as demonstrating "modernist aspirations" from the Bauhaus school, exuding "brutalist warmth". Stephen Neille, the Chair of Architectural Design at Curtin University, described it as reflecting Perth of that time: a city "brimming with confidence and consciously promoting itself to the world as a modern city". Adrian Iredale, from architects Iredale Pederson Hook, described the building as "simultaneously elegant and heavy and introducing poetry through the repetitive system of sun shading, the big Ts that hover in front of the facade on all sides."
  The building has divided the public over the years, with some branding the building an "eyesore" and a "hideous folly", whereas others considered it a "classic example of 1960s architecture and an important reminder of Perth's past" and a "unique building". It has been suggested by Associate Ralph Hoare from the Australian Institute of Architects said the building should never have been built on St Georges Terrace, having been built in the "wrong place".
  When it was built, it reflected this great optimism in WA, this was the sixties. I really think that's a superb building as it still mirrors the Perth of its time.
  — architect Dick Donaldson
caption: The building lit up by LEDs at night.
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