• Both buildings exemplify human creative genius, both in their architectural form, decorative elements and in the procedures performed within them. • Originating in the cultures and practices of the ancient world, as demonstrated for example in the Old Testament of the Bible but not limited to the religious standards of those espousing the Bible, certain cultural norms reflected there were prevalent in the ancient world, and were generally followed in several successive cultures, and were repeated in 18th -century British architectural neoclassicism. The significance of “up” over
“down”, the inferiority of “left” over “right”, the precedence accorded to certain civic functions such as the ruler over those governed, the dignity and importance of public functions being expressed in structural form (buildings), and the placing of such buildings in a location and in a context which gives highest standing and honour over secondary buildings (in the language of the criteria, specific “land-use” principles). That place and context follows the practices and principles of civic processions and ceremonies. • While the nature of parliamentary government developed in the Palace of Westminster, that development occurred in a medieval palace with limitations on the use of space to meet the principles of historic stature and protocol accorded Parliament. The development of what was to become the standard configuration of a Parliament in the British parliamentary system occurred not in London but, it appears, in the legislative building located in the city of Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1750s. The city was then the capital of one of the most sophisticated, educated and prosperous British colonies of the time. • What made the legislative building in Charleston so significant is that it employed all the principles of protocol and precedence that had their origins in ancient history as adapted and utilized by the Greeks and the Romans. These principles were later applied in the 1850s rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in the Victorian gothic designs created by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin. • The principles so adopted in South Carolina resulted in a legislative building with the following characteristics (1) a clearly defined site in the centre of the most important urban area in the colony, a site that was designed and intended to house the most important civic building in the
culture of the place; (2) a building designed to neoclassical designs speaking to the pre-eminence of the building and its association with ancient Greek city state democratic principles; (3) the principal floor (the piano nobile) being on the second (elevated) floor; (4) the internal spaces arranged to accommodate the governor, the legislative council (governor’s appointed advisory body) and the house of assembly (elective body); (5) the spaces so arranged reflect historicist protocols and precedents; for example, with the governor’s council chamber being on the right as one enters the piano nobile and the lower house on the left; (6) the principal chamber having a “throne” for the vice regal governor in the upper house and a “speaker’s chair” in the lower house, and (7) in the allocation of seating within the house of assembly whereby the government members sit to the right of the speaker and the opposition members to the left. • The Charleston building was the culmination of experiments in earlier legislative chambers, such as at Williamsburg, Virginia, which finally reflected efficiently and symbolically a Legislature in the British parliamentary system. • The Charleston building is highly significant to the legislative buildings in Halifax and Charlottetown because the form and protocols of the Charleston legislative building were taken by persons loyal to the British Crown who left the United States after the revolution in 1779 to other areas of the British Empire. In particular, the design appears to have been taken first by the Loyalists to Nassau in the Bahamas in the early 19th century and later to Halifax, Nova Scotia. • The layout of spaces and protocols of the Nova Scotia legislative building was applied with a few modifications to the legislative building built later in Charlottetown. • From this brief summary of the
history of the spacial arrangements and neoclassicism of the Halifax and Charlottetown buildings, it can be seen there is a clear continuity of form and function within the British American colonies of the 18th century and in turn continuity to the Palace of Westminster and its historicist roots. • Part of the international significance of the Halifax and Charlottetown buildings is that they are the most perfect extant examples of 18th-century British American legislative buildings. Virtually all United States legislative buildings of the 18th century by now have been so modified as to have destroyed their original conformation with the historicist design principles. • The “human creative genius” element of the criteria is also embodied in the exterior and interior decorative elements of both buildings. The Halifax building was designed in the style popularized in Britain by Scottish architect Robert Adam and the Charlottetown building in the contrasting neoclassical style of the Greek Revival. That the two buildings are in the two contrasting styles is a further reflection of their significance: the Adam style was grounded on Roman architectural traditions. The Greek Revival style developed out of the intense 18th- century philosophical re- examination and re-establishment of philosophical and architectural traditions of ancient Greece. The late 18th century witnessed passionate debates on the principles of both styles; the result was that the Greek principles of architectural style became predominant in the early 19th century. • The interiors of both the Nova Scotia legislative building and that in Charlottetown provide continuity with the external architectural style repeated in the interiors. The interiors of both buildings are superb examples of their respective architectural styles. The Nova Scotia building was held by