WA Museum Boola Bardip

The Western Australian Museum reopened in Northbridge in late 2020 after a long rebuild, under the Noongar name Boola Bardip, meaning many stories. The design keeps several nineteenth-century buildings on the site, including the old gaol, and threads new galleries around and above them, so you move between stone cells and glass volumes within a few minutes. The permanent galleries cover the state's geology and deep time, its marine life, its wildlife and its human cultures, with Aboriginal communities involved in shaping the sections that concern them. A suspended blue whale skeleton hangs in one of the halls. General entry is free, and the museum forms part of a cultural block with the state library and art gallery.

History

The museum began as the Geological Museum, opened in the Old Perth Gaol on 9 September 1891; ethnological and biological exhibits came in 1892, and in 1897 it became the Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery, its collector J. T. Tunney travelling the state from 1895 to 1909. In 1959 the botanical collection went to the new Western Australian Herbarium and the museum and the art gallery separated, and the Perth site closed temporarily on 18 June 2016 while the new museum, designed by OMA and Hassell, was built around the old buildings, reopening in 2020 (Wikipedia, Western Australian Museum).

Highlights

• The old gaol buildings - colonial stone cells kept inside the new structure and reused as gallery space.
• The whale skeleton - a full blue whale suspended above the floor in one of the main halls.
• The Western Australian nature galleries - the state's marine life, arid country and unusual endemic species.
• The Aboriginal cultures sections - regional stories from across the state, developed with the communities concerned.

When to go

Open daily and free, which makes it an easy fallback on Perth's hot summer afternoons or on a rare wet winter day. School holidays and weekend middays are the busiest. The cultural centre square outside hosts markets and events at intervals. Special exhibitions are ticketed separately and worth checking before you plan a long visit.

Good to know

The building is admired more than the contents by some visitors: galleries are handsome but individual sections are shallow, and you can walk the whole museum in two hours without feeling you learned a great deal. Wayfinding between the old and new structures is confusing. Northbridge immediately outside is a nightlife area and quiet by day. Special exhibition pricing can feel steep beside the free permanent galleries.

Nearby

The State Library, the Art Gallery of Western Australia and Perth station are all in the same block.

Key facts