PROJECT Government of Canada Visitor Welcome Centre, Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario
ARCHITECTS IBI Group Architects Canada (Prime Consultant), Moriyama & Teshima Architects (Design Architect)
TEXT Elsa Lam
PHOTOS James Brittain Photography
When I was growing up in Ottawa in the 1980s, you could walk straight through the grand neo-gothic front doors of Parliament Hill. Without too much fuss, you could stroll over to the public galleries of the House of Commons and Senate. Or you could head to the parliamentary library and admire the elegant wood-ribbed structure that had been protected from the great 1916 fire by its cast bronze doors. When the Hill was bedecked by Christmas lights in the winter, my parents would load up the car and we?d join other families who drove the loop in front of the East, Centre, and West Blocks, admiring the decorations. Then, in 1997, a delusional man drove his jeep up the staircase in front of Centre Block, stopping just short of the main doors. After 9/11, private vehicle access to the hill was further restricted. In 2014, a lone gunman shot a sentry at the National War Memorial, then entered Centre Block and was killed in an exchange of gunfire with security personnel. Public access to the chambers of democracy has been maintained through it all, but with an increasing gamut of check-in points and security scanning measures, a cumbersome presence in those revered stone corridors.
The main concourse of the Welcome Centre is topped by bronz...