Ontario Parliament Buildings
The Parliament Building of Ontario (English Ontario Legislative Building , French Édifice de l'Assemblée législative de l'Ontario ) is a building in the Canadian city of Toronto . It serves as the seat of the Ontario Legislative Assembly and the Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Ontario . The building in neo-Romanesque style was completed in 1893. It is located in Queen's Park , owned by the University of Toronto , but sold to the provincial government in 1859 for a period of 999 years for a symbolic price of one dollarwas leased annually. Because of the pink color of the sandstone used for construction , the parliament building is also known as the "Pink Palace".
architecture
The building, designed by the English architect Richard A. Waite , is an asymmetrical five-story structure in the neo-Romanesque style, the load of which is supported by a steel frame. Inside and out, it is lined with Canadian building materials whenever possible. The 10.5 million bricks were made by inmates of the central prison and the sandstone - a pink hue that earned the building the colloquial name Pink Palace - comes from the Credit River Valley and Orangeville, Ontario. It remained largely natural on the facade, but was smoothed around the windows and other corners. The building also has a variety of decorations, including gargoyles , grotesques, and friezes . The windows are unusually large due to the steel skeleton structure.
The main facade faces south, whereby the symmetry axis of the building coincides with the course of University Avenue and thus forms a visual conclusion to this main traffic axis. The council chamber in the center of the building is divided into two halves by this axis; three large arched windows above the portico let in daylight. Two domed towers flank this block; the western one was supposed to have a clock, but was instead fitted with a rosette , as there were not enough funds available for the clock. The asymmetry of the southern front was originally less pronounced than it is today: the west wing should be three stories high and have a pyramid-shaped roof, like the east wing today. After the fire of 1909, the west wing was repaired and a fourth floor was added, with dormer windows in the elongated gable . At the end of the east-west axis, both wings are bent at right angles and thus form an inner courtyard that is enclosed on three sides. In this courtyard there is a free-standing, square building with four floors.
Inside, a central hall runs from the main entrance in the south to a large staircase directly opposite. The parliamentary library in the building in the inner courtyard can be reached from the middle level. The lobby of the council chamber is located on the upper level of the stairwell, the door of which is centered on the south wall. From here, wide corridors extend to the east and west, both interrupted by an ornamentally decorated light shaft. The east wing with its dark wood paneling corresponds to the Victorian architectural style. The west wing with the marble-clad walls is more in line with neoclassicism .
On the northwest corner of the building is the viceregal apartment of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario since the provincial government sold the Government House to the federal government in 1937 . This area previously served as the dining room of the cabinet and the speaker's apartment . The lieutenant governor's apartment is currently two floors and has a gate for formal receptions. In front of this is a rose garden, which was donated by the Monarchist League of Canada in 1977 in honor of the silver jubilee of Elizabeth II . Inside are - grouped around a central hall - reception rooms, a dining room for gala dinners, office rooms and service rooms. The furniture and candlesticks were taken over from the former Government House, the paintings are from the provincial collection and from the Toronto City Library. The music room is the largest room in the viceroyal apartment and is the venue for various ceremonies.
history
Previous buildings
The current Ontario House of Parliament is the seventh structure to serve this purpose. The first was Navy Hall in Newark (now Niagara-on-the-Lake ), where the first session of the Upper Canada House of Representatives was held on September 17, 1792 . Two years later, construction work began on a new parliament building in York (now Toronto), as Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe considered the provincial capital's location on the border with the United States to be too unsafe. After the events of the American Revolution , relations between the United States and Britain were hostile. In June 1797 the wooden structure known as the Palace of Parliament at the intersection of Front Street and Parliament Street was completed and Parliament held its first session there.
However, moving to York did not guarantee the protection of the capital. The Palace of Parliament burned down on April 27, 1813 when American troops raided the city during the British-American War . Parliament then held a session in the ballroom of the York Hotel (between King Street and Front Street). Thereafter, until 1820, it met regularly in the house of Chief Justice William Henry Draper , which was at the intersection of Wellington Street and York Street. The new parliament building, erected on the same site as the previous building, fell victim to a fire on December 30, 1824 after only four years of use, after an overheated chimney sparked off.
From 1825 to 1829 Parliament met in the newly built York General Hospital . However, since this unnecessarily delayed the operation of the hospital, Parliament moved to the old courthouse on King Street. In 1832 a new parliament building was opened on the corner of Front Street and Simcoe Street. It was in operation until 1840 when Upper Canada was united with Lower Canada to form the Province of Canada and the then Governor General Lord Sydenham moved the capital to Kingston . Parliament held its sessions there in the general hospital building.
In the following years, the capital of the province of Canada changed several times: From 1843 to 1849 it was Montréal , until 1852 Toronto, until 1856 Québec , until 1858 again Toronto, from 1859 Québec and finally from 1866 Ottawa .
Today's building
On July 1, 1867, the Province of Canada joined the new Canadian Confederation and on the same day split into the present-day provinces of Ontario and Québec . Toronto was chosen as the capital of Ontario and the provincial parliament moved back to the building on Front Street that had already been used by the parliament of the province of Canada. Two fires in 1861 and 1862 damaged it and repairs had to be made.
In 1880 the province announced an architectural competition for a new parliament building to be built in Queen's Park . However, all of the designs submitted exceeded the cost limit of $ 500,000. The legislative assembly decided in 1885 to increase the building budget to 750,000 dollars and spoke out in favor of the design by the English architect Richard A. White, who lived in New York . Construction began in 1886 and was officially opened on April 4, 1893 by Lieutenant Governor George Airey Kirkpatrick (although the building was not yet fully completed). The cost of construction ended up being around $ 1.25 million. Some criticized the building as "too American".
The old Parliament building on Front Street stood empty for a few years and was demolished between 1900 and 1903. The provincial government sold the site to the Grand Trunk Railway , which built a freight warehouse and a marshalling yard on it. The Canadian National Railway used the site until the 1970s. Today there is the Canadian Broadcasting Center , a public square and several high-rise buildings.
The steadily increasing population of the province made it necessary to expand the parliament building. In 1909 a wing was added on the north side that enclosed the inner courtyard. A fire broke out on September 1st during construction. Workers accidentally sparked sparks while galvanizing the roof, which then jumped over and destroyed the interior of this part of the building. The repairs and rebuilding lasted until 1912. Further extensions to the parliamentary infrastructure were made on the east side of Queen's Park Crescent from then on. In the following decades a total of five high-rise buildings were built for the provincial administration (Whitney Block 1925, Macdonald Block and Hepburn Block 1968, Mowat Block and Hearst Block 1969).
The site of the first and second parliament buildings on the corner of Front Street and Parliament Street remained unused until 1838. After that there was a prison, a gas works and various small factories in the automotive industry. Today there is a parking lot next to a car dealership. Archaeological investigations have been carried out there since the beginning of the 21st century and efforts are being made to preserve the remains that have been discovered.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Art & Architecture Tour. (No longer available online.) Ontario Legislative Assembly, archived from original on June 30, 2007 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Protect the Pink Palace. Toronto Star , January 2, 2010, accessed July 31, 2010 .
- ↑ Virtual Tours: The Legislative Assembly of Ontario. (No longer available online.) Ontario Government, archived from original January 18, 2010 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The Lieutenant Governor's Suite. (No longer available online.) Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, archived from original February 1, 2010 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The foyer. (No longer available online.) Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, archived from original January 31, 2010 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Art exhibitions. (No longer available online.) Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, archived from original January 31, 2010 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The Music Room. (No longer available online.) Viceroy of Ontario, archived from the original January 31, 2010 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e History of Ontario's Legislative Buildings. Government of Ontario, accessed August 1, 2010 .
- ^ York Hotel and Sun Publishing. lostrivers.ca, accessed August 1, 2010 .
- ^ Then and Now: Parliament Buildings. Toronto Public Library, accessed August 1, 2010 .
- ^ The first parliament site. (No longer available online.) Archaeological Services Inc., archived from the original on November 19, 2012 ; accessed on August 1, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 43 ° 39 ′ 45 " N , 79 ° 23 ′ 29.9" W.