OPEN LETTER Heritage WA

Matteo Cornelius Sullivan


OPEN LETTER


Perth, 05/01/2021

Subject: Heritage WA


Dear Premier Mark McGowen,

Western Australia is very lucky in having Fremantle, one of the few islands in time in Australia, a city that survived with its architectural heritage nearly intact thanks to its past of poverty but there still are many idiots around and if some of the mayors of that city had been mayors of Venice, the venetians would have thrown them to the sharks.

We’ve been lucky that someone did stop the idiots and the speculators of the past by demolishing for example our first Western Australian public building the Round House when they already started; even Fremantle Markets are still there only by luck as other idiots wanted to demolish that building too.

The whole Fremantle, including its suburbs, should be seen as heritage and the havoc should be stopped or step by step idiocy and ignorance will wipe out Freo as we know it. And afterall there’s no scarcity of space elsewhere in Australia if someone wants to build something new.

It is a fact that if it is an historical society or an heritage society to decide if a building (or other) is "heritage", we are not really protecting our heritage and architectural history we’re just giving it a chance as there could be personal interest, indirect interest and corruption to undermine that purpose.

It also is a fact that most people understand nearly nothing about architecture history and another lot don’t care about it and these people are helped by architects who only care about their footprint, doesn’t matter if doing so they wipe-out history. On top of that many new Australians and residents think there is no heritage and history at all in our Country…

But if we had a law that stated that a building that is let’s say 79 years old, is automatically protected as "heritage" and if someone attempts to demolish it, the builder will lose his licence forever and the property will be confiscated, that way we would really protect our heritage.

Best regards

Matteo Cornelius Sullivan