Kewdale home for artefacts

Staff at the Western Australian Museum are facing a household ‘clean-up’ on a massive scale with up to three million artefacts being prepared for transport to a new storage facility in Kewdale.

A preserved 35-tonne blue whale is among the items presenting a major logistical challenge.

The new facility in Kew Street, previously used as a storage site for Allied Entertainment Industries, was bought recently by the department of Culture and Arts for $7.5 million.

An additional $10 million worth of work has been done on the building to make it compliant with artefact storage requirements, including a $2 million air-conditioning system.

This means that, for the first time, artefacts will be stored in proper museum conditions.

But most of the hard work lies ahead, with only 13 per cent of artefacts moved so far.

With the move expected to take three to four months, Allied Pickfords is going to have a busy time of it, particularly with regard to the whale.

The roof will have to be taken off the Francis Street building so the whale can be removed piece by piece.

Western Australian Museum acting executive director Allanah Lucas said the museum wanted to become a cultural institution the State could be proud of, and the new site would have nearly 100 employees working in a space a third the size of Subiaco Oval.

“We had to look at the first steps of developing that wider vision and examine our facilities and where we were placed,” Ms Lucas said.

“The spaces in the Francis Street building were not designed to be multi-functional, and couldn’t cope, but what triggered the move was the asbestos contamination which has become an issue over the past two years.

“The Department of Culture and Arts purchased the Kew Street site with the urgent need to meet the museum’s demand.”

Ms Lucas said a new museum head office was being created in Kewdale, which was a significant move in turning the corporate culture.

The research and storage site is not designed for public access.

With only 2 per cent of the collection on display at any given time, the museum has a huge non-exhibition component.

Acting director of science and culture Diana Jones said the museum received between 60 and 160 enquiries per day from the public, and played an important role in capturing the biodiversity of the State.

“We have a substantial number of holotypes, which are the single physical example of an organism which defines the characteristics of the whole species; other members of the species can be compared with it to determine whether they really are [that species],” Ms Jones said.

“This is really important for regulatory bodies like customs, CALM, the Department of Fisheries and environmental bodies.

“There are a lot of spokes that stem from the museum and contribute to the community.

“We keep records not because they are beautiful but because they are of interest or significance.”

The museum’s collection represents Western Australia’s social and natural history and includes, marine corals, Aboriginal artefacts, rare books, animal specimens and a collection of 3.5-billion-year-old fossils, the oldest in the world.

Exhibitions will still be held in the Perth Museum site, and the asbestos contamination is only relevant to the Francis Street portion of the museum.