Provencher Roy and GLCRM Architectes have added a subterranean pavilion to the parliamentary home of the Canadian province Quebec.
Local practice GLCRM Architectes and Montreal studio Provencher Roy created the addition to form a new entrance underneath the National Assembly of Quebec. It marks the first time the government building has been changed in over 100 years.
Photograph by Stéphane Groleau
The project was designed to facilitate public access to the historic 1886 structure and update its infrastructure.
A circular, white-painted spiral ramp forms the main circulation and structure for the underground addition.
Photograph by Stéphane Groleau
"We opted for a sensitive and completely integrated intervention, by sliding the entire pavilion beneath the existing landscape and using the monumental staircase to establish a new entrance, to the pavilion itself and to the parliament's spaces," said Provencher Roy co-founder Claude Provencher. The pavilion nestles into the existing construction and is almost completely invisible from the front of the existing building, which was completed in the Second Empire style.

Glass walls are built into an original outdoor staircase to offer glimpses of the contemporary space below.
"All masonry elements of the staircase were dismantled piece by piece, stored and later reassembled identically, and the National Assembly's frontage was excavated down to the building's foundations in order to install the new programmes ? a...