West Block - History

History

The Department of Public Works sent out, on 7 May 1859, a call for architects to submit proposals for the new parliament buildings to be erected on Barrack Hill, which was answered by 298 submitted drawings. After the entries were narrowed down to three, then Governor General Sir Edmund Walker Head was approached to break the stalemate, and the winner was announced on 29 August 1859. The departmental buildings, Centre Block, and a new residence for the Governor General were each awarded separately, and the team of Thomas Stent and Augustus Laver under the pseudonym of Stat nomen in umbra, won the prize for the first category.

Construction on the West Block commenced by the end of 1859, at the same time as work on the Centre Block and Stent and Laver's East Block began. By the time it was completed in 1865, the building was three years behind schedule, and the first tenants were the offices of the Postmaster General, the Ministry of Public Works, and the Crown lands departments. As the number of parliamentary and administrative staff increased as the area of the country grew, more space was added to the West Block in 1878, the Mackenzie Wing and Tower, and in 1906, the Laurier Tower and link.

In the early years of the third millennium, the masonry of the West Block was found to be in a state of severe disrepair; scaffolding and protective sheeting were erected in order to prevent falling blocks from striking pedestrians and/or cars below, and a restoration project was immediately implemented. The two largest towers were also stabilised with temporary steel structures, for fear of stones falling off them.

During a planned renovation of the Centre Block to begin in 2019, the central courtyard of the West Block will be infilled and roofed over in order that it may serve as a temporary chamber for the House of Commons.