Osgoode Hall

Book excerpt: Winner of the 2006 Fred Landon Award Osgoode Hall is a national monument and one of the architectural treasures of Canada. Of the many public buildings erected in pre-confederation Canada and British North America, it best encapsulates the diverse stylistic forces that shaped public buildings in the first half of the nineteenth century. The gated lawns, grandly Venetian rotunda, the noble dimensions of its library, handsome and ornate courtroom, portrait-lined walls and stained glass evoke a venerable dignity to which few Canadian institutions even aspire. It has been the seat of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1832 and of several of the Superior Courts of the province for almost as long. Intended to be the focal point of the legal profession in Upper Canada it has become a symbol of the legal tradition not only in Ontario but throughout Canada and beyond.