A Trail of Two Cities: Suturing Together Crown and Town

As symbols of national identity that must simultaneously function as cities of everyday life, political capitals are pulled between opposing obligations. With the role of a nation's Capital comes the need for buildings of monumental significance, in particular, parliamentary precincts and related network of supporting administrative buildings. The presence of a federal seat of power can result in a splitting of the city in two, whereby the formalistic buildings of government coexist alongside the informal city of the everyday. In many capitals, including Ottawa, the architectural languages of these two cities are in stark contrast. This thesis develops an architectural vocabulary to bridge together Ottawa’s formal and informal realms within the downtown core. A kit of parts comprised of formal and casual architectural components, and a use-logic for how to deploy this kit, provides a strategy for overcoming the implied boundary between Ottawa’s quotidian and capital realms.