INSIDER: The inspired minds behind WA’s new Boola Bardip Museum

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it requires an army of Western Australia’s most inquisitive minds to build and open one of the biggest museums in the Southern Hemisphere. And, after a decade in the making, the curtain will finally be raised this Saturday on the rebuilt WA Museum, Boola Bardip. The institution is the jewel in the crown of Perth’s Cultural Centre and already the envy of the international museum community, who are expected to come knocking on WA’s door the moment travel restrictions are lifted. Insider reveals the stories of the key players behind Boola Bardip, and how they were able to bring the new museum to life. MAKING A MUSEUM SOUP A building that is rooted locally but significant globally — that is what the design team envisaged for the rebirth of the museum. Dutch architect David Gianotten, from renowned global firm OMA, and Mark Loughnan, from Hassell, undertook the superhuman task of wrapping the heritage buildings into a resplendent new design. Their brief? To seamlessly fuse the old with the new using the Old Gaol (built in 1855), the original WA Museum — the Jubilee Building (1899), the original Art Gallery (1908) and Hackett Hall (1913). Gianotten says the design process was not unlike making a soup. “You start with the base and you make it richer and richer, and at some point you serve it,” he says. “That’s how a project like that works — it’s probably four years from the very first inception until the delivery. “A building like this needs to have life, and you can’t create life in one or two moves.” The dramatic design features soaring spaces that reflect the vast and rugged West Australian landscape, and metallic finishes that pay homage to our resource-rich State. “WA just scale-wise has some drama about it,” Loughnan says. “The horizontal nature, the vertical nature of the cliffs and the sky — it’s very multidimensional and I think when we came up with the original ideas ... we all saw some drama that I think reflected the scale of the place.” No detail is by accident. The gold reflection on the exterior of the glass, for example, was inspired by a vein of gold in a boulder of quartz that was first presented to the museum in 1892. It is also a nod to WA’s gold rush era. More Insider The museum is stitched together through two loops — one horizontal and one vertical — that intersect to allow people to wander without following a specific route. “I think it’s important a museum like this respects that idea of journey and discovery and movement, and that it really tells the story of time, both past, present and the future,” Loughnan says. There’s myriad treasures to explore in eight galleries that span more than 6000sqm, including 1000sqm for visiting exhibitions. SLIDING SCALE OF PHILANTHROPY Boola Bardip would not have blossomed without crucial support from the Foundation for the WA Museum and its chief executive Jenny Allen. The Foundation holds the purse strings when it comes to philanthropic donations and has been managing the sale of naming rights to the building’s eight permanent galleries and learning studio. The galleries sell for between $3m to $5m, with sponsorship usually lasting about 10 years, according to Allen. Some organisations that have pledged support so far include WA-based conglomerate Wesfarmers, Tianqi Lithium, the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation and Woodside. The first naming-rights partners are also recognised as founding partners of the museum. But galleries are not the only game in town — a range of unusual and wonderful objects within the museum, everything from seats to meteorites, will also become available for sponsorship. “Obviously there’s a sliding structure scale of what people can or can’t do,” Allen says. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to be honest with you. We’re not going to get another new museum in the next 100 years.” Allen says networking — rather than cold calling — significantly helped the foundation’s fundraising efforts. She has a “fairly strong network”, as do others on the foundation’s board such as chairman and former Fortescue Metals Group boss Nev Power. It’s also been invaluable in growing the foundation’s endowment fund, which started at $5m when Allen became CEO in 2017 and is now worth $22m. The fund is designed to provide a steady source of income to support research projects by WA Museum scientists and curators, in addition to public education programs and international exhibitions. WA billionaires Andrew and Nicola Forrest have made significant contributions to the endowment fund, including gifting 800,000 FMG shares in 2011. They were valued about $2.8m in 2016, when half of the parcel was sold at a price of $3.91 per share. FMG shares have more than quadrupled in value since then. Nicola says it was extremely rewarding to see the museum use the 2011 donation to set up a fellowship to further its research work and lock in future exhibitions. “It’s just such a great thing for Perth and helping us become a place for arts and culture,” she says of the new museum. “During COVID especially, we’ve attracted many great people back to our shore and now it’s up to each and every one of us to continue to build that cultural infrastructure which will ... keep our best and brightest here in our State.” PERRON PROUD AS PUNCH The late Stan Perron, who rose from living in a Goldfields home with no electricity or running water to become one of Australia’s most successful businessmen and philanthropists, was a great supporter of the WA Museum. And while he will not be there to see Boola Bardip open in all its glory, his daughter Elizabeth believes her “humble” dad would be proud as punch. “I think my dad would be really proud that WA now has such a magnificent facility in which people, especially children, can come and learn more about our heritage and history,” she says. The stunning renovation of the century-old Hackett Hall was made possible with the support of the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, now chaired by Elizabeth. It comes as no surprise the Treasures of WA Gallery, where the State’s 24m-long blue whale skeleton hangs from the ceiling, will be named after Perron, who made several large contributions to the museum foundation before he died in 2018. “Dad preferred to avoid the limelight and make his donations discreetly without fanfare. However, we are grateful that the museum has chosen to honour Dad in this way as part of this funding arrangement as he was a very proud Western Australian,” Elizabeth says. Perron’s name will also live on through several small items which will eventually be displayed and highlight key moments from his extraordinary life. “These will include the letter of agreement between my father, Lang Hancock and Peter Wright that led to the pegging of leases for iron ore in the Pilbara,” Elizabeth says. In 1959, Perron owned an earthmoving business and was asked by Hancock — Gina Rinehart’s father — for £1000 to fund the struggling iron ore exploration partnership he had established with Wright, a fellow prospector. Perron refused, instead investing £500 for a 15 per cent share of any future royalties stemming from the prospectors' pegged area in the Pilbara. A formal deal was drawn up in 1964 and the £500 investment went on to net him hundreds of millions of dollars in mining royalties — and still does today. ADVOCACY BY ACHIEVEMENT When Alec Coles came on board as WA Museum’s chief executive officer in 2010, part of his job was to make a case for the new museum. Funding for the new museum was committed in 2012, but even in the wake of that investment there were still concerns it would falter as governments faced pressure to prioritise essential infrastructure. “I used to have a colleague in the UK ... and he had a phrase which was ‘advocacy by achievement’,” Coles says. “You can protest as much as you like about how good you are, or how good you could be, but ultimately the way to convince people is to actually do it.” Coles points to three major events that helped build confidence in the idea of a new museum: the hugely successful A Day in Pompeii exhibition in 2010, working with the British Museum to hold a special exhibition during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 2011, and developing content for Albany’s National Anzac Centre in 2014. “It’s about building that confidence amongst people, whether it’s government investing or philanthropic investors or corporate investors, that you can deliver,” Coles says. “Now I see what we’ve got before us, I think we’ve delivered.” A MUSEUM FOR WEST AUSTRALIANS Culture and Arts Minister David Templeman says the redevelopment of the new museum was a close thing due to the “perilous” budgetary situation the McGowan Government faced when it came to power in 2017. “Given the museum was a $400m commitment, there was some close scrutiny about whether the project should continue on its proposed timeline,” he adds. Templeman agitated for extra funding to allow the new museum to open with a 100 per cent fit-out — rather than the 70 per cent fit-out previously budgeted for — and for free entry for the first 18 months. WA Museum chair, emeritus professor Alan Robson, believes it is vitally important that Boola Bardip remains accessible to everyone. “I was very keen that the museum be open to all of the people of WA and it represents the views of the people of WA,” he says. “I think the museum staff have done a wonderful job of achieving that.” A STORY OF OUR FIRST PEOPLES Boola Bardip, which stands on Whadjuk Nyoongar country, means “many stories”. It is a fitting name given 54,000 people were engaged as part of the redevelopment, a staggering figure believed to be unprecedented anywhere in the world. Museum staff went to every corner of the State to collect stories, including working with 60 different Aboriginal language groups. “Sometimes we had to change tack because the community told us the story we thought was a good one to share was not the story they wanted to share,” says Renae Woodhams, the senior project officer who led community engagement. “We had to be flexible and nimble in that to ensure we were respecting the process.” Irene Stainton, chair of the WA Museum's Aboriginal Advisory Committee, believes it was only fair the museum consulted broadly and extensively “to ensure that Western Australians had the opportunity to shape our new museum”. “For me, this was very important, as we all wanted Boola Bardip to be a museum of the people for the people and a place where everyone is welcome,” she says. “The museum is a State museum and tells the many stories of the delightful tapestry of cultures that WA is known for and proud of.” It is Stainton’s hope the rich educational experience will assist with a greater understanding of cultural diversity and more compassion across WA’s multicultural community. “It is through these shared experiences that we will all eventually walk together in the spirit of reconciliation.”