Parliament Hill (French: Colline du Parlement), colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural elements of national symbolic importance. Parliament Hill attracts approximately 3 million visitors each year.
Originally the site of a military base in the 18th and early 19th centuries, development of the area into a governmental precinct began in 1859, after Bytown was chosen by Queen Victoria as the capital of the Province of Canada. Following a number of extensions to the parliament and departmental buildings and a fire in 1916 that destroyed the Centre Block, Parliament Hill took on its present form with the completion of the Peace Tower in 1927. Since 2002, an extensive $1 billion renovation and rehabilitation project has been underway throughout all of the precinct's buildings; work is not expected to be complete until after 2020.
Read more about Parliament Hill: History, Grounds and Name, Parliament Buildings, Statues and Monuments
Famous quotes containing the words parliament and/or hill:
“A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body.... It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.”
—John Pym (1584–1643)
“For now the moon with friendless light carouses
On hill and housetop, street and marketplace,
Men will plunge, mile after mile of men,
To crush this lucent madness of the face....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)