Parliament House (Wellington)

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Parliament House (right building)

The Parliament House in Wellington , New Zealand , the building is since 1918 in the New Zealand Parliament in session.

geography

Parliament House is located in Thorndon , Wellington , on the site between Hill Street , Molesworth Street , Lambton Quay , Bowen Street and Museum Street , between the Beehive and the Parliamentary Library , just off Museum Street . The front of the building faces the park in front of it and Molesworth Street .

The building

The Parliament House has a floor area of ​​around 74 m by 74 m and is around 23 m high. On the left side of the front part of the building is the main entrance, which is accessible via a 34-step staircase and decorated with four columns. According to the original planning, this part should have been the middle part of the building. The left wing of the building was never realized. The dome over the entrance was never erected either. Continuing to the right, the eight free-standing columns up to the massive corner structure of the building are striking. The facade of the building as a whole looks a bit sublime and a little monumental due to its massive construction and its cuboid structure of the outer walls and the use of marble and granite . The architectural style corresponds to the neoclassical Edwardian style ( age of Edward VII ) of his time.

Entrance at Parliament House

The foundation laid when the foundation stone was laid in 1912 consisted of a mixture of gravel and cement , on which the building was later erected. When it was determined in the 1980s that the condition of the building had deteriorated and due to the fact that the Wellington Fault , a tectonically caused fault, only passed 400 m past the building and the building would certainly not withstand a major earthquake would hold, the decision was made to lift the foundation from the ground at the same time as the renovation and to put the entire building on cushioning rubber bearings. In addition, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research had calculated that an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 on the upward Richter scale in the Wellington Fault can occur every 500 to 600 years and that the last earthquake of this magnitude was around 350 years ago. This increased the likelihood of a major earthquake that could destroy Parliament House in the remaining 150 years to 10 to 50%.

So new 7-ton concrete blocks with the thereon each one began in each 4 meters distance between the concrete floor of the building and the foundation vibration from rubber insert. Together with the adjacent building of the Parliamentary Library, a total of 417 dampers were installed, which, according to their design , can cushion an earthquake of up to MM 7 on the Mercalli scale without any damage to the building. By MM 8, the building should withstand an earthquake without structural damage. In the event of a conceivable earthquake for the region in and around Wellington with a strength of MM 9, slight non-structural damage could be expected, and with a strength of MM 10, which would be expected between 500 and 600 years, the experts say that the building will be light structural as well as major non-structural damage would be preserved, but the substance of the building would be preserved.

history

When the seat of parliament and government was moved from Auckland to Wellington in 1865 , parliament moved into a wooden building erected in 1857-58 by the then Wellington Provincial Council on the corner of Molesworth Street and Hill Street . In the 1870s, the much too small building was rebuilt and significantly expanded by the New Zealand architect William Clayton and in the 1880s by Thomas Turnbull . But in 1907 the building burned down and Parliament had to move temporarily to the government building now known as the Old Government House .

To find a replacement for the destroyed building and the best design for it, then Prime Minister Joseph Ward called a competition in February 1911 . 33 drafts were submitted. Government architect John Campbell won the competition and it was decided to combine elements of his first and fourth place designs for the building to be constructed. But from the start, cost was a big problem. The foundation stone was laid in March 1912 on the parliamentary grounds, which had already been prepared in 1910. But the start of construction was delayed by the newly elected Prime Minister William Massey in July 1912 , who was not convinced of the construction project. The actual construction did not begin until the beginning of 1914, but without the originally planned dome construction and the roof decorations.

In the first construction phase, the chambers for the lower and upper houses , as well as the required offices, were built and only completed in 1922 with considerable delays. New Zealand's involvement in World War II led to a shortage of materials and labor, and the originally planned use of Takaka marble, which was unexpectedly difficult to find, also led to the construction delays. The parliament, however, which suffered from the lack of space in the Old Government Building and urgently needed new premises, moved into the still unfinished building at the end of 1918.

The part planned for the second construction phase for the government, the library and Bellamy's , a kind of restaurant and bar for the government and members of parliament, in which alcohol could also be served, was never tackled again and so the entire building remained, based on its original blueprint, unfinished. In 1943 a so-called penthouse office for the Prime Minister Department and rooms for the cabinet were set up on the roof , but the basic structure of the Parliament House remained unchanged from 1992 to 1995 except for the renovation and reconstruction of the foundation. Not noticeable from the outside, the foundation was placed on 417 rubber bearings together with the foundation of the Parliamentary Library during the renovation work. The aim of this measure was to increase the earthquake resistance of the building, which was registered as a listed building on July 20, 1989.

After the renovation work was completed, the building was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II on her visit to New Zealand in 1995.

See also

Web links

Commons : Parliament House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e John E. Martin: History of Parliament's buildings and grounds - Parliament House. New Zealand Parliament, March 28, 2012, accessed October 19, 2014 .
  2. ^ How Parliament works - Fact sheets - The earth may move, but Parliament stays put. New Zealand Parliament, September 16, 2011, accessed October 19, 2014 .
  3. ^ A b New Zealand House of Representatives (ed.): Base Isolation Earthquake Proofing used in Parliament Buildings . Wellington 2010 (English, information sheet for visitors to the Parliament Buildings published by the Visitor Service).
  4. ^ Parliament's people - Social life. New Zealand History Online, July 15, 2014, accessed October 19, 2014 .
  5. ^ Parliament House. Heritage New Zealand, accessed October 19, 2014 .

Coordinates: 41 ° 16 ′ 40 ″  S , 174 ° 46 ′ 35 ″  E