Thursday Doors – August 13, 2015

We recently took a trip to our nation’s capitol, Ottawa about a two and half hour drive West of Montreal, to visit the Parliament buildings, which are the home to our Federal Government.

Sitting on a hill on the banks of the Ottawa River Canada’s Parliament is made up of three main buildings.

The centre block (below) contains our main House of Commons, the place where all proposed federal legislation is presented and debated by our elected officials before being voted into law.

One of the unmistakable features of the centre block is the majestic 300 foot tall peace tower.

The other two structures that make up the parliament buildings are the East and West blocks, which contain hundreds of offices for various ministers and senators, as well as other meeting rooms.

The West block is currently under renovations and was cloaked in scaffolding. Here is a shot of the East block:

I had not visited Parliament Hill since the fifth grade when we went there on a school field trip as part of our studies about politics, parliamentary democracy, the Canadian constitution, and how the laws that govern our everyday lives come into being.

The memories of these wonderful old neo-gothic structures with their vaulted ceilings, marble staircases, classic artwork and stone carvings had me thinking that if these buildings were as impressive as I remembered them, then grown-up me was in for a real treat when it came to discovering and photographing their doors.

So there I was walking up the path across the lawn towards the centre block, camera at the ready, fully expecting to be marveled by a majestic set of doors leading into the heart of Canadian democracy.

Instead this is what I found:

Some of the planest looking oak doors I have ever seen 😦

Okay, yes the entranceway is certainly not shabby with arches and carvings, but I have to say the actual doors that lead into the main home of our federal government are somewhat underwhelming.

After getting over my initial disappointment I looked over at the East bloc and noticed quite a few different looking doors that from a distance anyway, seemed to have potential.

We headed over and ended up spending almost half an hour walking all the way around the building, stopping frequently to take pictures of some pretty impressive doors.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Now that’s a little more like it 🙂

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