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MPs have settled into their new home across the lawn in West Block.

A short walk down Wellington Street in Ottawa, workers are making last-minute fixes at the new Senate of Canada Building, a former train station that will house Parliament’s senior chamber.

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In the Library of Parliament, precious books, maps and documents have been carefully packed and taken to new homes in various locations around the capital.

By the end of January, Parliament’s Centre Block will be off limits to all but the engineers, architects, archivists and labourers, who will spend the next decade or more renovating and remodelling the most famous building in Canada.

Photo by National Archives of Canada / C773

This newspaper has been touring Centre Block over the past several months to make a photographic and video record of what’s inside: the magnificent public chambers of Parliament and the hidden rooms that outsiders rarely, if ever, get to see.

The Parliament Building — that’s its official name, not Centre Block — opened in 1920, just four years after a deadly fire destroyed the original structure, killing seven people, including a sitting MP. British-born architect John Pearson and Jean-Omer Marchand of Montreal were commissioned to determine what could be saved of the ruins (nothing, they said) and to rebuild the home of Canada’s federal government.