Yellowknife Legislative Assembly Building

The Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly Building was designed and built nearly 100 years after other capital buildings in Canada, in the harsh, remote land beyond the Arctic Circle. In response to the unique aspects of designing a new capital building, the site was carefully chosen to reflect the beauty of flat, scrub landscape and emphasize the architecture which has a harmonious relationship to rock out-croppings, the peat bog
foreground and the lakeside location. The concept for the building and its relationship to its surrounds was based on the approach of least intervention. This involved maintaining vital ecological processes, conserving biological diversity, and utilizing ecosystems and populations of plants and animals at sustainable levels by dealing with key problems of conservation and development in a systematic and holistic way.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY BUILDING
& CAPITAL SITE
YELLOWKNIFE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES

Completed:

Architect:

Landscape Architect:

Plant Collector:

Landscape Contractor:

Client:

1994

Matsuzaki/Wright Architects, Vancouver - Jim Wright,
Pin Mathews, Yellowknife, NWT – Gino Pin

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Vancouver, B.C.
- Cornelia Oberlander, Elisabeth Whitelaw

Pacific Plant, Vancouver - Bruce McTavish

North by Northwest Ventures Inc., Vancouver - Tim Ferguson

Department of Public Works, Northwest Territories