The Saskatchewan Legislature, with Regina in the background

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building is located in Regina, Saskatchewan, and serves as the seat of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan. No file by this name exists; you can upload it. ... No file by this name exists; you can upload it. ... Motto: Nickname: The Queen City Motto: Floreat Regina (Let Regina Flourish) Location City Information Established: 1882 Area: 118. ... The Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan is located in Regina. ...

History

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building was built between 1908 and 1912 in the Beaux Arts style to a design by Edward and W.S. Maxwell of Montreal. The Maxwells also supervised construction of the building by the Montreal firm of P. Lyall & Sons, who later built the Centre Block of the federal Parliament Building in Ottawa after the 1858 Parliament Building was destroyed by fire in 1916. Piles began to be drilled for the foundations in the fall of 1908 and in 1909 the Governor General, Earl Grey, laid the cornerstone. Beaux-Arts architecture denotes the academic classical architectural style that was taught at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, the home territory of this style, which influenced American architecture in the period 1885 – 1920. ...

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.

Walter Scott anticipated that the building might "for a century yet be credible enough to form the main building on the Capital grounds" (Barnhart: 2002, 43), the general assumption of the time being that Saskatchewan's population would quickly grow to several million. That century has now almost elapsed; the provincial legislative building remains the main building on the "Capital grounds," but indeed, continues to be the most imposing structure in the considerably smaller city than its founders envisioned.

Other

The Saskatchewan Legislative Building is located at 2405 Legislative Drive, Regina. Free tours of the facility are offered throughout the week.

Further reading

• Barnhart, Gordon L., Building for the Future: A Photo Journal of Saskatchewan's Legislative Building (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, 2002). ISBN: 0-99877-145-6.