JUSTICE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Looking at the Library and Archives Canada photos that document the progress of construction at the Justice Building is like getting historic X-ray vision.

The Justice Building stands alongside its older brother the Confederation Building. Prior to Greber's 1937-38 intervention all of Wellington Street west Bank was intended to look like this.

A Depression-era project, the Justice Building (T.W. Fuller, Chief Dominion Architect) was a stripped down version of the more flamboyant Confederation. It was also cheaper. In 1929 the final contract price for the Confederation was $2,538,670. In 1935-37 the Justice cost $1,223,000.

The Dominion Government had begun to acquire all of the land west of Bank and north of Wellington after the 1913 Holt Commission Report had recommended this site for a massive federal complex overlooking the Ottawa River. This had been Ottawa's Upper Town, an enclave of large houses and some commercial buildings like the Bank of British North America, seen above in the lower left.

Excavation for the Justice, which was also referred to as the R.C.M.P Building in its first years, began in early 1935. The small stone building adjacent is a side view of the BNA Bank, which had closed when it was absorbed by the Bank of Montreal. The gap across Wellington Street was being readied for another future federal building, then undetermined but ultimately given to the Bank of Canada.

The ca. 1919 Wellington Street west of Bank was wide, but not handsome. The tallest building in the centre is the Norlite Building (an upcoming URBSite post).

It was lying in wait for a powerful ensemble of federal institutions. The Norlite, which is the only carry-over from the historic view is just right of the crane.

Within six months of breaking ground the south wing had taken shape. Sandwiched between Justice and Confederation the little BNA Bank, then being used by the Dominion Elections Officer, hung on through the whole construction period. When it was demolished in late 1936 Prime Minister Mackenzie King, back in office fresh from his 1935 election victory, asked the Department of Public work to salvage the bank's entrance way for the Arc de Triomphe ruin at Kingsmere.

Here is the wing today clad in its Nepean sandstone skin. The BNA gap now frames the view across Wellington to the Bank of Canada.

Erecting the steel frame moved forward at a furious pace. The building had reached five storeys only five weeks after breaking grade level.

It's impossible to replicate the same view because the last Temporary Building is in the way.

By July 1935 the frame was essentially complete and the floors were being poured.

The Justice is simple U-shape, with a light court facing east.

March 23, 1935 - looking north down Vittoria Street (the extension of Kent north of Wellington) pre-steel, with some of the site's grading issues being resolved. St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church spire is in the middle distance and the vacant houses at the right sat on what would eventually be the Supreme Court's front lawn.

One month later a wide trench was being laid - probably to connect the building to the Central Heating Plant which was located on the Ottawa River shore below the cliffs.

The Department of Justice has since moved across Wellington Street, and it is now used for Parliamentary Offices.