Perth Voice Interactive

THE old Fesa House is slowly coming down, with heavy machinery picking away at the brutalist building’s concrete innards.

The Hay Street building’s construction was unusual and makes for a challenging demolition: high-tensile steel veins run through the concrete and the entire structure’s under tension.

It would’ve made it difficult to convert for other uses as even knocking out a wall would’ve proved tough.

Instead, the WA government wants a 350-room five star Westin hotel on the site, “providing much needed rooms in Perth’s CBD” according to WA tourism minister Lisa Harvey.

Fesa house wasn’t considered good enough for state heritage listing.

When Perth city council gave the rubber stamp for demolition, city architect Craig Smith said “once this is gone there’ll be no good brutalist buildings left in Perth”. “This generation is doing what the last generation did, knocking down all the buildings of the last 40 years.”

by DAVID BELL