It appears that the Parliament Office is seeking to lay down a car park in the eastern portion of the Parliament Building compound. Is it possible, the battered citizen must be asking him or herself, that such utter foolishness could be under contemplation? The answer is, unfortunately, yes it could. Didn’t some luminary with a jaundiced eye decree that the compound of Castellani House should be blighted for ever by a building of such ill-favoured dimensions, that passers-by could only catch their breath at the astonishing incongruity of it all? And even that is to leave out of account the vulgarity of its luminous roof, which rain or shine, glints malevolently in the direction of its elegant neighbour housing the nation’s art collection, no less.
No doubt a car park, or car port or whatever nonsensical notion has germinated in the cerebellum of some aesthetically challenged bureaucrat, would be altogether a more modest structure than the intelligence headquarters which have taken over the Castellani grounds. However, that would not make it any more acceptable. Since there were no cars when the Public Buildings were first opened in 1834 and for many decades after that, it isn’t as if a structure can be erected in keeping with the original architecture. If this hare-brained scheme goes ahead, it will most likely be a rather pedestrian effort boasting, one supposes, that most uninspiring of canopies – a galvanized roof.
It is worth reminding the authorities, perhaps, of the age and origin of Parliament Building – or the Public Buildings as it was earlier known. According to James Rodway, the executive advertised in 1828 for plans for a public building two storeys high and of similar dimensions to the existing government offices, which had fallen into disrepair. The architect whose designs were chosen was Joseph Hadfield, and the foundation stone was duly laid in 1829. The finished structure was completed and occupied in April 1834, although the official handing over did not occur until August 5 of that year in the presence of the architect and two of the three contractors – Roderick McKenzie and Hector Kemp. The absentee was JD Paterson, who was represented by George Booker. The contractors’ work, it seems, was of high quality; the building sat on a foundation of greenheart logs, and in a country where structures of any kind are not known for their durability, this edifice has survived relatively unscathed.
This survival has meant the building has been associated with the government of this country at some level from abolition onwards. Leaving churches aside, it is the oldest public structure in Georgetown still in continuous use, providing a tangible link with the past. The building is embellished with one feature that is not all that common in our environment, namely a dome, which taken together with its other architectural advantages, endows it with great presence and elegance. Parliament Building has always had land space around it, although as can be seen from the pictures from the 1830s down to the 1870s, it was not always enclosed by railings.
As in the case of the Castellani grounds, the compound is an integral part of the structure. In fact, the building is much more hemmed in now than it was at the time it was erected, and reducing the land space around it further would detract from the atmosphere of the site. The question is, why would anyone want to diminish our Parliament’s historical and graceful character by putting up a glorified car shed in its immediate vicinity?
As has already been pointed out elsewhere, the eastern portion of the compound is also home to a statue of Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, the pioneer of Guyana’s trade union movement. Will he now be crowded out by a motley collection of Prados and other automobiles, or is the proposal to move him? (One presumes that it is not in the plans to find him accommodation inside the car shed.) It is true, of course, that the powers-that-be have little time for statues; the one in the Castellani House grounds gave them absolutely no pause for thought, and in fact they still have not decided what to do with it although it can no longer be accessed by the public.
The members of the government have been labelled philistines so often in these columns without producing any refutations in response, that one can only suppose they revel in the epithet. But Guyana’s National Assembly is not just a forum for ruling party MPs; the three opposition parties also have seats in the chamber, so why has there been no objection from them? Are they so taken up with coalition talk or whatever, that everything else is ignored? Or is it that like the government they are not too concerned about history and architecture?
One wonders too if the National Trust has been approached about this latest travesty. After all, Parliament Building is very much on their list for preservation. (It might be noted that so too was Castellani House, although that did not prevent the government from debasing its compound, and by extension the building itself. It has never been revealed whether the National Trust was approached before construction started there either, and whether it ever registered any objection to the proposals.)
No one is denying that the Members of Parliament and staff of the building are probably in need of a more capacious car park. But surely with a little imagination and effort some other alternative could be found in an area outside the compound.