There Goes The Windsor: cinema denied State heritage registration

The Windsor on Stirling Highway | Photo Graham Grundy, 2015

The Heritage Council of WA at its September meeting considered the listing of the Windsor Theatre in Nedlands on the State Register of Heritage Places, before concluding that it “does not have sufficient cultural heritage significance at the State level for inclusion in the State Register”. 

The Windsor was listed in the Survey of 20th Century Architecture in 1988, classified by the National Trust in 1990, and also recorded in the Nedlands Municipal Inventory in 1999.  However, it was never actually listed in a Nedlands Planning Scheme Local Heritage List, and has now been rejected for State registration.  Despite many professional, expert and community accolades over the years, the Windsor has never achieved any statutory heritage protection.  Co-incidentally, it was also removed from the non-statutory Nedlands Municipal Inventory (now Local Heritage Survey) by Nedlands Council in July 2020.   

The History Council, understanding the significance of any decision on listing the Windsor, and the state-wide precedent it would likely be, made a submission to the Heritage Council in August supporting listing.  We argued that the draft assessment needed strengthening by a more substantial consideration of the historical and social values of the place, needed a more rigorous approach to the comparative analysis that compared the Windsor on a properly defined like-for-like basis, and needed to reference the assessment of authenticity within the overall assessment.  The overall draft assessment, we concluded, “could be strengthened to better articulate the historical and social values of the place … [and] greatly enhance the assessed and registered significance of the place, and ultimately provide clearer guidance in the future management of the cultural heritage values of the place.”   

The Heritage Council came to its own conclusions, for reasons that are yet to be explained.  As a consequence, defenders of the Windsor, and advocates for the conservation of heritage places and buildings generally, concerned that an unwelcome precedent is being set, have been planning and co-ordinating their responses under the aegis of the Art Deco & Modernist Society of Western Australia.  It feels like a return to bad old days before heritage legislation, a sort of heritage redux, with old battles having to be fought all over again. Much is sure to heard about the Windsor decision in 2021 – watch this space.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 

Bruce Baskerville