ontario-government-building: Government Office Building, Thunder Bay, Ontario. Canada
Designed 1987
Architect of Record Reginald Nalezyty
The Thunder Bay Government Offices house the Federal offices for Northern Ontario. It houses approximately 180,000 square feet of office space in three upper floors, another 60,000 square feet of public interface departments on the ground floor and parking, delivery, secure storage and utilities on a lower floor. The building sits on a prominent site, overlooking a public park on the waterfront of Lake Superior. A porte-cochere at the rear covers the public entrance into the main lobby, which leads to a grand gallery along the new site giving access to public meeting rooms, exhibition space, cafeteria, day-care center and bank. The colonnade along this side covers an outdoor gallery accessible from the parallel gallery inside. Because of this location and importance in the small town of Thunder Bay, efforts were made to enhance this usually ordinary box-like structure with some of the motifs of Federal presence.
Photo taken from train tracks courtesy the Erickson Collection
