Saskatchewan Legislative Building
| Saskatchewan Legislative Building | |
|---|---|
Saskatchewan Legislative Building and grounds
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| Record height | |
| Tallest in Regina, Saskatchewan from 1912 to 1927 | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
| Town or city | Regina, Saskatchewan |
| Country | Canada |
| Construction started | August 31, 1908 |
| Completed | January 25, 1912 |
| Cost | $1.75 million |
| Client | Government of Saskatchewan |
| Owner | Government of Saskatchewan |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Edward and William Sutherland Maxwell |
| Official name | Saskatchewan Legislative Building and Grounds National Historic Site of Canada |
| Designated | 2005 |
| Type | Provincial Heritage Property |
| Designated | 1978 |
The Saskatchewan Legislative Building is located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and houses the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.
The Saskatchewan Legislative Building was built between 1908 and 1912 in the Beaux Arts style to a design by Edward and William Sutherland Maxwell of Montreal. The Maxwells also supervised construction of the building by the Montreal company P. Lyall & Sons, who later built the Centre Block of the federal Parliament Building in Ottawa after the 1866 Parliament Building was destroyed by fire in 1916. Piles began to be drilled for the foundations during the autumn of 1908 and in 1909 the Governor General of Canada, the Earl Grey, laid the cornerstone. In 1912, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, by then the serving governor general, inaugurated the building.
The design contemplates expansion of the building by the addition of wings extending south from the east and west ends and coming together to form a courtyard. The plans originally called for the exterior of the building to be red brick but after construction had begun and red bricks were already on the site, Premier Walter Scott decided that Manitoba Tyndall stone would give the building greater grandeur and the plans were adjusted with the substitution increasing the building cost by $50,000. The total cost of construction came to $1.75 million by the time of its opening in October 1912, ten months after the assembly had begun meeting in the yet-uncompleted building.
Diverging from parliamentary tradition, the carpet in the legislative chamber was red until 2012. Traditionally, red carpet is used for houses of unelected members, such as the Canadian Senate, and houses of elected members are given blue or green carpet. Walter Scott preferred red carpet, and for a century the Saskatchewan Legislative Building stood as one of only two in Canada to feature red carpet in its legislative chamber (British Columbia's being the other). The red carpet was replaced by green carpet in the summer 2012.
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