Context
Le Parlementaire is the National Assembly’s restaurant – designed by architects Marché and Tanguay, and built between 1916-17 inside the Parliament Building’s courtyard. It occupies the upper floor of a building which was then nicknamed the “power building” (it also housed the heating and electrical systems of the Parliament) and was called the “Café du Parlement” when it opened. An unassuming building on the outside, the beaux-arts architecture is fully developed inside the restaurant’s dining room. A walkway connects the restaurant to the Parliament Building (1877-1886), designed in the same style. The restaurant has been renovated numerous times since its opening, with the last renovation dating back to the 1980s.
Challenges and Constraints
The project’s major challenge is to modernize the space and meet the new programmatic requirements, within a heritage context: to create a friendly place while preserving the monumentality of the space; to ensure a dynamic sound space by providing acoustic comfort; to integrate programmatic, technical, and technological requirements in a space where the majority of the surfaces are heritage in nature.
Concept
To guarantee a harmonious integration, the project proposes the consolidation of interventions in a contemporary base which incorporates all the required additions and modifications: service furniture, new benches, planters, heating, electrical and multimedia services. The area above the base, from the columns to the top of the ceiling vault, is restored and enhanced. A dialogue takes place between the base and the heritage area.
Conceptual Intentions
– to highlight the original beaux-arts architecture of the site
– to create zones with distinct atmospheres: central dining room zone, banquette zones and bar zone
– to open the space to the outside by removing the velvet drapes and sunlight to reveal the magnificent facades that surround the courtyard of the Hôtel du Parlement. This simple gesture conveys the ideals of openness and transparency of parliamentary democracy.
– bring in vegetation by integrating planters in front of each window
– Make the Parliament Building a showcase for Quebec know-how by collaborating with a Quebec designer for the new furniture and using local materials
Strategies and Interventions
1. Heritage Coronation
New tones and clarity
Change surface tones from white to light grey to brighten the spaces and give them a more contemporary look and to highlight the gilding, bas-reliefs and elaborate columns. The darkest part of the ceiling, the vault, which was once bluish, was painted white to act as a light diffuser.
Reversing sound absorption
The carpet installed in the 80’s which ensured the acoustics of the place and contributed to the impression of obsolescence of the restaurant, gave it a depreciated status. In order to ensure pleasant acoustics in a very high place (8,75m) which can welcome up to 130 people in banquet configuration, the addition of an acoustic plaster composition of identical aspect to the original plaster is integrated inside the mouldings of the high ceiling box. Long vertical acoustic panels are also concealed behind each column.
2. Contemporary Base
The entire lower perimeter of the space on which the colonnade rests was covered with painted wood panels in poor condition. The proposed new contemporary plinth is rebuilt from American black walnut planks with brass inserts. Within this thickness, which already conceals heating units under each of the windows, benches are added at one end to create a more intimate area with bistro tables, and at the other end to accommodate small fixed cocktail tables, (4) serving cabinets are integrated and distributed to properly service the room and large planters are integrated under each of the windows. The walnut surface of the base turns over 840mm and forms a border on the floor all around the room that frames the central area.
3. Central Zone
Reinterpretation of patterned floors
A new wood floor replaces the outdated carpet. The center area is clad in American red oak planks that are arranged to form a diamond pattern throughout the room. Brass inserts frame the change in direction of the planks and separate this lighter wood area with the surrounding black walnut area. The pattern work on the floor reinterprets in a contemporary way the rather striking wood and ceramic patterned floor coverings that characterize all of the spaces in the Beaux-Arts style Parliament House. The replacement of the floor covering with wood enhances the warmth of the whole and the black walnut on the perimeter matches the existing oak doors which are restored and stained even darker in walnut color.
Bar Area
A new bar is installed at one end of the room. Monumental and on the scale of the place by its large dimensions (it can accommodate 18 people), it is still friendly by its U-shaped configuration that brings people together face to face. Its materiality assures the status of the place: a large black slate top from Quebec where the guests sit. The recessed base is covered with brass leaves that match the color of the red oak. On either side of the bar, banquettes host narrow cocktail tables designed for the place with black slate tops and brass legs fixed to the floor that complete this other area of the restaurant.
4. Lighting, Optical and Multimedia Systems
Lighting Fixtures
The three heritage brass chandeliers that adorn the ceiling, and their variations in wall sconces installed in each of the overhangs around the room, were restored, relamped and brought up to standard. The lighting design was developed by CS design and highlights each of the created zones and highlights the bas-reliefs above the windows and doors at the perimeter of the room.
Optics
The eight wall sconces are duplicated by large mirrors that were added in the eight overhangs creating face to face mirrors and unexpected reflections by the four mirrors that occupy the 45 degree corners of the room.
Multimedia
The flexibility of the room allows the National Assembly to organize events in conference mode for which a retractable screen is discreetly camouflaged in the ceiling at one end of the room and a sound console is concealed in black walnut and brass furniture located in the perimeter zone.
5. Showcase of Quebec Know-How
The modernization of the restaurant is an opportunity to demonstrate current Quebec know-how within the National Assembly building. We worked with young Quebec designers from Atelier vaste who designed the chairs, bar stools, bistro tables, and tables for the two private rooms, whose main components are made of black walnut.
Through an in-depth analysis and an accurate reading of the site, the project demonstrates that it is possible to intervene in a heritage site beyond simple restoration and in a contemporary manner to both reveal the splendor of the original site and propel it into the contemporary. In the specific context of this spectacular heritage space, the dialogue between the contemporary interventions and the original architecture takes place subtly in a gentle symbiosis rather than in an ostentatious contrast. This new architecture nevertheless transforms the uses and the relationship to the space: from a stilted and hushed space that projects the image of the power of the wealthy, the restaurant, despite the still and resolutely majestic setting, now embodies the dynamism, conviviality and transparency of a democratic meeting space.
axonometry
