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Quinn arrived in Perth in the mid-1970s, en
route to Melbourne after working overseas.
“The sky was blue and the beach was empty
so I ended up staying here.”Although he
initially worked on more conventional projects,
Peter has specialised in churches and schools
in his later career.
He decided to retain as much of the 1865
building as possible: the entry porch, two
typical bays and the defining spire.“I thought
anything less would be just tokenism.”
An important part of the brief was to increase
the seating capacity and improve sightlines.
The solution was to insert a new semi-circular
section between the 1865 and the 1930
structures, thus creating a sensitive transition
between the two buildings and providing a
much enlarged nave with uninterrupted views
of the altar from three sides.
“I couldn’t copy what was there because it’s
two different styles for a start,” he says.“And I
didn’t want the new work to compete with
the old, a ‘look at me’ statement, but I wanted
it to respect the existing fabric and be a
harmonious link between the two.”The precast
concrete structure is glazed behind the
colonnades, contrasting with the solidity of
the older sections.
The cathedral also functions as a local parish
church but had very limited administration or
ancillary-use facilities. Quinn was anxious to
retain the square’s openness and chose to
underground the meeting rooms, social areas,
music practice rooms, offices and conference
rooms.
The 1930 section, originally tiled, was reroofed
in a Marseille-pattern terracotta tile from Bristile
Roofing which also removed the old tiles
and installed the new roofing system.
Supervising the project for Bristile was John
Rawlins, who as a 15 year old apprentice,
worked on the cathedral’s reroofing in 1961.
He was a “wire boy” tying off copper wires
attached to a lug on the underside of each
tile, a process superseded by nailing.
The building was fully scaffolded and the old
tiles stripped. Both Rawlins and Quinn were
surprised at state of the roof timbers.“The
timber was in beautiful condition,” recalls
Rawlins who has since retired.“It was
impractical to reuse the old tiles although they
were still in excellent condition.”The end trusses
were tied back to the gables to improve rigidity,
a concession to the code introduced after the
disastrous 1967 Meckering earthquake.
Water penetration had been a problem with
the old roof, partly because of its 50 degree
pitch but mainly because the roof was not
sarked and the adjacent Royal Perth Hospital
complex creates a wind corridor that blew rain
under the tiles.The solution was to place a
double layer of sarking by half overlapping.
New hardwood battens were fastened and
the tiles, all 20,000 of them, laid and nail-fixed
by a team of ten.
The colour chosen was Copper Blaze, a dark
brown terracotta tile with subtle shadings of
lighter browns, a non-standard colour
custom-made for the project.
The 1865 section was reroofed in slates, an
acknowledgement of its heritage.The
cathedral entry was paved in porphyry granite
cobblestones.A new spire in stainless steel sits
alongside the old slate-clad spire.
Despite original concerns from the Heritage
Council of Western Australia – including that
the new spire not “shamelessly mimic” the old
– the project was a finalist in the council’s 2011
Western Australian Heritage Awards.
St Mary’s Cathedral also won WA’s top
architectural award in 2010, the George
Temple Poole Award.“The finished building tells
its own story through the superb detailing and
sensitive relationship of the old to the new”
said the jury which also described it as “a
delightful master work of public architecture.”
It was also awarded the Jeffrey Howlett Award
for Public Architecture (WA) and the Australian
Institute of Architects Award for Heritage (WA).
Not surprisingly, Peter Quinn considers St
Mary’s Cathedral to be the pinnacle of his
career and “a very hard mountain to climb.”
For John Rawlins, it could be said that he
began his working life at the pinnacle, scaling
the roof of one of Perth’s defining buildings
as a youth and returned to it at the zenith of
his career.
“To have two church
buildings not designed
to link together and
then to cut a slice out
of the two and to join
them, I don’t think you
could get anything
harder,”
previous page.
Successfully linking the original
1865 cathedral building to the much larger
1920s extension was the challenge of his
career for Perth architect Peter Quinn.
right.
The previous unsympathetic link between
the old and new buildings was demolished.The
new link not only blends the two very different
building scales, but also brings in light,
expands seating capacity and improves
viewing.The roof was fully scaffolded to allow
double sarking to be placed and new tiles
fixed over the original roofing timbers.