Without a doubt the most recognizable feature of modern Ottawa is the Parliament Buildings. The centre of Canadian governance both symbolically and literally, the Parliament Buildings are a beautiful addition to Ottawa’s skyline and to Parliament Hill. Once Ottawa was chosen as the capital of Canada, the government issued a call for architectural designs for the buildings; the winning designs were chosen in 1859. The firm of Thomas Fuller and Chillion Jones of Toronto won the contract for the Centre Block; another firm, Stent and Laver, won the contract for the East and West Blocks.[1] Construction officially began when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, visited in 1860 and laid the corner stone. As with any major construction project, the initial cost estimates quickly proved to be unrealistic. One major issue was that the proper type of stone was harder to obtain than originally believed; the original plan had been to ferry the stone over the river from Hull but this turned out to be prohibitively expensive and most of the stone was instead brought in from Nepean Township.[2] The initial cost estimate sat around 1 million dollars; by the time the buildings neared completion, three times that much had been spent.
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