From Brutalism to Beauty: The Case for Returning Canada to Traditional Architecture

The Connaught Building in Ottawa in a file photo. Alina Reynbakh/Shutterstock

Commentary

In Ian Fleming’s 007 novel “For Your Eyes Only,” James Bond visits Ottawa where he has a meeting booked with the RCMP commissioner, and so he reports to the Department of Justice alongside the Parliament Buildings. This is how Fleming described the building and, by extension, Ottawa generally: “Like most Canadian public buildings, the Department of Justice is a massive block of grey masonry built to look stodgily important and to withstand the long and hard winters.”