Co-operative Bulk Handling Building (fmr), West Perth (CBH Building, AFG Building)
Co-operative Bulk Handling Building (CBH) is a six-storey office building constructed in 1968 from off-form reinforced concrete with distinctive concrete sunshades. It was erected as offices for CBH to replace their outdated rooms at the Wesfarmers Building on Wellington Street.
CBH was founded by Wesfarmers, a co-operative farmers organisation, to pool grain and enable it to be shipped more efficiently than each farmer handling their own produce. During the Depression of the late 1920s, the price of wheat fell to such an extent that it was barely worth harvesting, and costs needed to be reduced. CBH devised a system that was cheap, simple, and effective: elevators that loaded the grain into simple corrugated iron wheat bins that came to define the rural Western Australian landscape.
Starting in 1963, CBH bought the land on Delhi Street where Co-operative Bulk Handling Building is now located. The existing houses were demolished, and Geoffrey Summerhayes, a third-generation Claremont architect, was asked to design new offices. CBH moved into its new premises in 1968.
A new CBH headquarters was opened in 2003, just down the road at 30 Delhi Street. The 1968 offices were sold to a developer, who refurbished the building for general business use, and today it is leased to a number of major companies.
Co-operative Bulk Handling Building (CBH) is a six-storey office building constructed in 1968 from off-form reinforced concrete with distinctive concrete sunshades. It was erected as offices for CBH to replace their outdated rooms at the Wesfarmers Building on Wellington Street. These old offices were in such poor condition that one worker remembered:
There were no floor coverings, only pine boards. The ceilings were painted grey and over the windows were fan lights which were opened with spiral rods. It was a very hot building, we had to sit at the table in summer and keep a piece of blotting paper under our arm to soak up the perspiration to keep our work clean.
CBH was founded by Wesfarmers, a co-operative farmers organisation, to pool grain and enable it to be shipped more efficiently than each farmer handling their own produce. Before this, grain was loaded by hand into jute bags in the paddock, which were sewn up and manually hoisted to be transported to the nearest railway siding. Here the bags were weighed before being stacked for loading. It was then transported by rail to Fremantle, weighed again, before being loaded into ships. It was a very slow process.
During the Depression of the late 1920s, the price of wheat fell to such an extent that it was barely worth harvesting, and costs needed to be reduced so farmers could survive. CBH needed to devise a system that was cheap, simple, and effective. The result was elevators that loaded the grain into simple corrugated iron wheat bins that came to define the rural Western Australian landscape.
Starting in 1963, CBH bought the land on Delhi Street where Co-operative Bulk Handling Building is now located. The existing houses were demolished, and Geoffrey Summerhayes, a third-generation Claremont architect, was asked to design new offices. CBH moved into its
new premises in 1968. The Australian Wheat Board took the first floor of the new building while the Grain Pool of WA took most of the second floor.
A new CBH headquarters was opened in 2003, just down the road at 30 Delhi Street, named Gayfer House after Mick Gayfer, Director of CBH for 37 years (1959-96). The 1968 offices were sold to a developer, who refurbished the building for general business use, and today it is leased to a number of major companies.