There is, I repeat, no
degradation, no reproach in this, but all dignity and honourableness: and we
should err grievously in refusing to recognize as an essential character of the
existing architecture of the North, or to admit as a desirable character in
that which it may yet be, this wildness
of thought and roughness of work; this look of mountain brotherhood between the
cathedral and the Alp; this magnificence of sturdy power, put forth only
the more energetically because the fine finger-touch was chilled away by the
frosty wind, and the eye dimmed by the moor-mist, or blinded by the hail; this
out-speaking of the strong spirit of men who may not gather fruitage from the
earth, nor bask in dreamy benignity of sunshine, but must break the rock for
bread, and cleave the forest for fire, and show, even in what they did for
their delight, some of the hard habits of the arm and heart that grew up on
them as they swung the axe or pressed the plough.[1]
The above passage appears in John Ruskin’s famous essay “The
Nature of Gothic” which was published in 1853 as part of his work, The Stones of Venice, written in an
effort to cast out the ‘pagan’ and ‘plagiarizing’ effects of the last three
hundred years of Greek, Roman, and Renaissance architecture in Europe.[2] Gothic, on the other hand, was considered
both scientific in terms of structure and sacred in terms of expression.[3]
From his vantage-point at Oxford, Ruskin
as architectural theorist had a profound influence on Britain’s Gothic Revival,
which was already underway following the need to rebuild Parliament, after fire
consumed it in 1834.
Ottawa’s Parliament building are Gothic, partly because of
the desire to follow the Westminster tradition, partly to avoid the
neo-classical formations of Washington DC (hence heeding Ruskin, as well), but
also as the above passage suggests: because of the “mountain brotherhood
between the cathedral and the Alp.”
Ruskin stressed as primary the moral element of “savageness” in the
Gothic imagination, an apt description of Canada’s untamed landscape and the
hardships endured by its early pioneers.
The choice of location for Canada’s Parliament buildings, on the rocky
promontory surveying the swirling Ottawa River, also indicates ‘savageness’,
and it reflects Ruskin’s influence. Perhaps more importantly, as the above
quotation suggests, Parliament’s aspiring Gothic features and high vaulted
ceilings can be seen as a kind of complement to - or “mountain brotherhood”
with - the Rockies to the West.
In other words, Canada’s Gothic Parliament buildings were considered
a kind of national unity symbol, a statement of intent completed in 1866, a
year before Confederation, well before any railroad could link east to west.
