Council House, Perth

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Council House is a high modernist skyscraper set in the Stirling Gardens of Perth, Western Australia. It was designed by Howlett and Bailey Architects and opened by The Queen during the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games.

Jeffrey Howlett and Don Bailey had won a design competition for a Town Hall and auditorium in 1961. Their design consisted of two buildings, one containing administrative offices and the other comprising the 'town hall' or auditorium. Council House served as the administration building, however it was not until the early 1970s that the accompanying auditorium - Perth Concert Hall - was constructed.

Council House is a fine example of architectural design known as brutalism. Brutalist buildings usually are formed with striking repetitive angular geometries, and often revealing the textures of the wooden forms used to shape the material, which is normally rough, unadorned poured concrete.

The building was intended as a point of reference for a modern optimistic Perth, which was about to embark on the process of rebuilding large parts of the city as the result of a major mineral boom. However, few of the resulting buildings came anywhere near the design quality of Council House.[1]

Council House underwent extensive internal refurbishment in the 1990s. In February 2006 it was placed on the state of Western Australia's list of Heritage Places, on an interim basis.