Parliament Buildings: The architecture of politics in Europe

As political polarisation undermines confidence in the shared values and established constitutional orders of many nations, it is imperative that we explore how parliaments are to stay relevant and accessible to the citizens whom they serve. The rise of modern democracies is thought to have found physical expression in the staged unity of the parliamentary seating plan. However, the built forms alone cannot give sufficient testimony to the exercise of power in political life. Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, rituals, identities and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect? This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history

Geology of the Parliament Buildings 6. Geology of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings, Victoria

The British Columbia parliament buildings were constructed in two stages: the first building was started in 1893 and officially opened in 1898; the addition was started in 1912 and completed in 1915. The primary external building stone is a fine-grained, light grey, dacitic volcanic rock, commonly called Haddington Island andesite. The foundation and lower courses are mediumgrained, grey, salt-and-pepper granodiorite, called Nelson Island granite. The Haddington Island andesite was also used for exterior architectural ornaments and statues. A variety of marbles from the USA and Italy decorate the interior of the buildings. Several monuments and fountains within the legislature precinct display a variety of both imported and local provenance building stones. This article presents a brief history of the parliament buildings and their construction, a description of the building stones, and an overview of a century-long performance record of the exterior building stones, which have long resisted the effects of British Columbia coastal weather. SOMMAIRE Les édifices du parlement de Colombie-Britannique ont été construits en deux étapes : la construction du premier édifice a débuté en 1893 et il a été inauguré en 1898; la construction d'un ajout a débuté en 1912 et a été complété en 1915. La pierre de construction du parement du bâtiment initial est une roche volcanique dacitique gris pâle à grains fins, communément appelée andésite de l'île Haddington. La fondation et les assisses inférieures sont formées de blocs d'une granodiorite tachetée grise à grains moyens appelée granite de l'île Nelson. L'andésite de l'île Haddington a également été utilisée pour les statues et l'ornement architectural. Des marbres variés des États-Unis et d'Italie décorent l'intérieur des édifices. Plusieurs fontaines et monuments de l'enceinte législative sont faits de pierre de construction d'origine diverse. L'article qui suit présente une histoire abrégée des édifices du parlement et de leur construction, une description des pierres de constructions, ainsi qu'un aperçu de la durabilité centenaire des pierres de construction extérieures, lesquelles résistent depuis longtemps au climat côtier de la Colombie-Britannique

Building Stones of Canada's Federal Parliament Buildings

The building stones used in the Ottawa Parliament Buildings were mined from numerous quarries in Canada, United States, and several European nations.They were cut, placed and carved according to exacting procedures using the most up-to-date technology of the time. Construction of the rebuilt Centre Block, the focus of this article, was a protracted affair, interrupted by the demands of the1914-1918 Great War. Exterior stone of the Parliament Buildings has endured the ravages of weather, fire, seismic shaking and pollution. Recently, great effort and expense have been devoted to the restoration of the masonry elements of all of the buildings to ensure the continued viability of this National Historic Site.The role of the geologist, critical in the initial evaluation and selection of the building stone, was largely ignored until recently. Building restoration of late has also restored the role of the geologist, with the requirement to understand the complex reactions of the building stone to the environment and its neighbouring masonry elements, and in the quest to find suitable replacement stone. Résumé Les pierres de construction utilisées pour les édifices du Parlement à Ottawa proviennent de nombreuses carrières autant au Canada, aux États-Unis que de plusieurs pays européens. Elles ont été taillées, posées et sculptées suivant des procédés précis, en conformité avec les règles de l'art de l'époque. La reconstruction de l'édifice du centre qui est le sujet du présent article, a été une affaire qui s'est étirée étant donné les priorités lors de la Grande Guerre de 1914-1918. Ces pierres de revêtement des édifices du Parlement ont subi les avanies du climat, du feu, de tremblements de terre et de la pollution, et récemment, des efforts et des fonds considérables ont été consentis pour la restauration des éléments de maçonnerie de tous les édifices afin d'assurer la pérennité de ce site historique national. Le rôle déterminant du géologue, lors de l'évaluation initiale et du choix des pierres, a été largement ignoré jusqu'à maintenant, mais la restauration des édifices a permis de remettre en valeur le rôle du géologue, parce qu'il fallait d'abord comprendre les réactions complexes des pierres de construction avec l'environnement et les autres éléments de maçonnerie avoisinants, afin de pouvoir trouver des pierres de remplacement convenables

Parliament Buildings and the Sinking of the Titanic

The RMS Titanic was the ultimate symbol of the power and ubiquitousness of the British Empire. Everything was in the finest Edwardian Classic style. The public rooms were sumptuous with a grand Baroque stairway leading into the Grand Salon. There was the first-ever on board swimming pool, a Palm Court, a Parisian Café and a lounge modelled after a room at the Palace of Versailles. On the evening of 14 April, 1912, the ship hit an iceberg. It took two hours and 40 minutes after hitting the floating ice for the ship to go down. Construction of the Parliament Buildings in Wellington began in 1912. The finally approved design was an amalgamation of the winning competition entry of John Campbell and Claude Paton and the fourth placed design by Campbell and Lawrence. The design was in the distinct Edwardian Classic image of the British Empire but with only a little of the exuberance of some of Campbell's Imperial Baroque work. Interestingly, the building displayed some New Zealand character, most notably in the use of materials and in the Māori Affairs Committee Room. The building was not completed, half finished, until 1922. This paper discusses the nature of the entries to the Parliament Building competition and the politics surrounding the event. It focuses on the architecture of John Campbell, most notably his affinity for the Edwardian Classical style. The paper explores the significance of the style in the New Zealand context and conjectures on other influences that might have held some sway. Finally, the paper suggests the building might have benefited from suffering a fate similar to that of the Titanic

The language of freedom: democracy, humanity, and nationality in the architecture and art of the modern european national parliament

This chapter draws on the work of Hans Kohn and Anthony D. Smith in order to re‐examine two important, related, but relatively neglected aspects of modern nationalism: (i) the ancient Greek and Hebrew sources of modern conceptions of liberty and nationality, and (ii) the complex relationship between particularism and universalism, nationality and humanity, in the making of modern national identities and solidarities. After considering theoretically and historically these two aspects of modern nationalism, the chapter looks at their empirical manifestations in the parliament buildings of modern Europe. This it does by means of a small survey of the architectural style and artistic decorations of European parliament buildings, constructed between the late eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. In this survey, I examine, first, the visual vocabulary and symbols of democracy, as the rule of free people, turned into citizens, and, second, how images of the self‐governing demos (the people) became intertwined with and were mapped onto images of the self‐governing nation

Phantom German Air Raids on Canada: War Hysteria in Quebec and Ontario during the First World War

In late August of 1914, Canada entered the First World War following the unanimous vote of a special session of Parliament. This event occurred amid great exuberance and unanimity, and was marked by parades, decorations, cheering crowds and patriotic speeches. Canada was situated far from the European front lines, and its distant, vast land mass and cold climate also contributed to a feeling of insulation from attack or invasion. However, despite a general feeling of distance from the war\u27s unfolding events, there was a rapidly growing realization that German sympathizers and enemy agents might pose a more immediate threat

Restoration and Renewal of Parliament: Buildings as a Vehicle for Change

No abstract available

iCLEF 2006 Overview: Searching the Flickr WWW photo-sharing repository

This paper summarizes the task design for iCLEF 2006 (the CLEF interactive track). Compared to previous years, we have proposed a radically new task: searching images in a naturally multilingual database, Flickr, which has millions of photographs shared by people all over the planet, tagged and described in a wide variety of languages. Participants are expected to build a multilingual search front-end to Flickr (using Flickr’s search API) and study the behaviour of the users for a given set of searching tasks. The emphasis is put on studying the process, rather than evaluating its outcome