Parliament House, Wellington

Parliament House in Wellington is the main building of the New Zealand Parliament Buildings. It contains the debating chamber, Speaker's office, visitors' centre, and committee rooms. It replaced an earlier building that burned down in 1907, and Parliament used the building from 1918, with it being fully finished in 1922. Parliament House was extensively earthquake strengthened and refurbished between 1991 and 1995. It is open for visitors almost every day of the year, and is one of Wellington's major visitor attractions. Parliament House is a Category I heritage building registered by Heritage New Zealand.HistoryOn 11 December 1907, the original Parliament House burned to the ground, along with all other parliament buildings except the library. The Liberal Government took this as an opportunity to completely redesign the seat of government, with unified buildings in permanent materials for the politicians and the supporting administration. A museum was allowed for and the public servants would move across from the Old Government Buildings on Lambton Quay.A competition to find a replacement design was announced by Prime Minister Joseph Ward in February 1911 and 33 designs were entered. The winning design, by Government Architect John Campbell, was selected by Colonel Vernon, former Government Architect for New South Wales. As another of Campbell's entries won fourth place, the actual design is a combination of both entries. The design was divided into two stages. The first half, a Neoclassical building, contained both chambers and the second half Bellamy's and a new Gothic Revival library to replace the existing one.