From the venue of choice for host­ing T&T’s In­de­pen­dence cer­e­mo­ny in 1962 to the scene of the brazen at­tack dur­ing the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup to im­por­tant leg­is­la­tion be­ing passed by the Gov­ern­ment, the Red House which hous­es T&T’s Par­lia­ment has been an im­por­tant part of the coun­try’s her­itage.

A lot of sig­nif­i­cant events in the coun­try’s his­to­ry took place around the Red House which has fi­nal­ly been re­stored at a cost of $400 mil­lion. On Fri­day par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­sumed du­ties at the Red House af­ter a nine-year re­lo­ca­tion to the Port-of-Spain Wa­ter­front build­ing.

His­to­ri­an Ger­ard Besson, who spoke to the Sun­day Guardian last Tues­day, said the Red House’s long and dis­tin­guished his­to­ry was in­ter­wo­ven with the evo­lu­tion of T&T as a coun­try.

As a pub­lic build­ing it is part of our na­tion­al her­itage but it is al­so much more than that.

Besson said it was "the phys­i­cal sym­bol and phys­i­cal re­al­i­ty of one of the key and im­por­tant in­sti­tu­tions of the State. It is sig­nif­i­cant be­cause it is an ar­chi­tec­tur­al gem. It is part of our built her­itage which is like a his­to­ry book. It rep­re­sents the in­sti­tu­tion—the Par­lia­ment and the Sen­ate."

The Red House build­ing was opened to the pub­lic on Feb­ru­ary 4, 1907, by Gov­er­nor Sir Hen­ry Moore Jack­son. The Red House that ex­ists present­ly is the suc­ces­sor to old­er build­ings that had ex­ist­ed.

The foun­da­tion stone for the orig­i­nal build­ing was laid in 1844 by the then gov­er­nor Hen­ry Mcleod.

Besson said the orig­i­nal Red House was built across the street from where Wood­ford Square is to­day and it was called Brunswick Square in those days. 

That orig­i­nal build­ing was called the "Gov­ern­ment Build­ing.''

'A place where the peo­ple found ex­pres­sion'

Besson said a lot of sig­nif­i­cant events in the coun­try’s his­to­ry took place around the Red House.

"There was a time where the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al’s records were kept at the Red House and peo­ple went there to get their birth cer­tifi­cates and their land busi­ness. It very mean­ing­ful in the minds of peo­ple. This was where the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil met. This body was the fore­run­ner to the Par­lia­ment we have to­day."
The place has sig­nif­i­cance for dif­fer­ent peo­ple in dif­fer­ent ways, Besson said.

He added that when T&T be­came an in­de­pen­dent na­tion in 1962, the cer­e­mo­ny took place in the Red House. 

"The Red House is a place where the peo­ple have ex­pressed them­selves. So whether it was the Mus­limeen at­tempt­ing their coup or the Ratepay­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion who burnt down the pre­vi­ous build­ing in 1903, it was al­ways a place where the peo­ple found ex­pres­sion."

Built with stones from Laven­tille and Pic­cadil­ly quar­ries

Besson is sat­is­fied with the restora­tion of the Red House.

"Of course, I am hap­py with how it looks. The restora­tion of the Red House is a demon­stra­tion of the ma­tu­ri­ty of the coun­try. This present Gov­ern­ment is suf­fi­cient­ly con­fi­dent in it­self, it is suf­fi­cient­ly ma­ture to re­store a colo­nial ed­i­fice. These old build­ings are more than just ‘build­ings’, what they rep­re­sent are in­sti­tu­tions. The Pres­i­dent’s House is more than a build­ing, it is an in­sti­tu­tion."

He al­so said that the peo­ple of T&T should note the ma­te­ri­als used to build the Red House were ma­te­ri­als from Trinidad, they were not im­port­ed.

"The build­ings were built with stones and these stones came from the Laven­tille and Pic­cadil­ly quar­ries. They were not im­port­ed from Eng­land. The build­ing it­self comes from the very foun­da­tion of the coun­try it­self. It was the lo­cal ma­sons who cut the stones in Laven­tille’s quar­ries. The rough stones were smoothened out and brought to per­fec­tion and put in­to the build­ings."

The Red House, he said, was built in the for­mal ar­chi­tec­tur­al style and all the dif­fer­ent clas­si­cal or­ders such as the Corinthi­an and Doric are ex­pressed in the build­ing.

The for­mal ar­chi­tec­ture, he said, was meant to con­vey au­thor­i­ty.

Besson said it was a myth that the peo­ple of T&T don’t care about the na­tion’s his­to­ry.

"It is fash­ion­able to say that peo­ple don’t care a damn, but that is not true. For the Red House and the Pres­i­dent’s House to have been re­stored by the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate of the day, it is be­cause we un­der­stand that peo­ple care about these things."

Humphrey: Democ­ra­cy more than just a build­ing

John Humphrey, 87, an ar­chi­tect and for­mer par­lia­men­tar­i­an told the Sun­day Guardian he is hap­py that the Red House has been ren­o­vat­ed but his prob­lem is that way too much mon­ey was spent on restor­ing the build­ing. He felt the mon­ey could have been spent on so­cial projects for the coun­try’s low­er-in­come peo­ple.

"I am not mov­ing around much these days but I have to go to see the com­plete works. I like the fact that they built a bridge across St Vin­cent Street. My prob­lem is that too much mon­ey was spent on the restora­tion."

He lament­ed that these his­toric build­ing were left to de­te­ri­o­rate in the past and he urged the Gov­ern­ment to do more to main­tain them, so that when it is time to ren­o­vate, it would not be so cost­ly.

Humphrey first en­tered Par­lia­ment in 1977 as a sen­a­tor and was a par­lia­men­tar­i­an up un­til 2001.

He has many mem­o­ries in the Red House as a pub­lic ser­vant, do­ing the work of the na­tion, but he said his great­est re­gret was not do­ing enough to change the pow­er struc­ture of the coun­try.

Humphrey not­ed that the Red House is a prod­uct of T&T’s colo­nial past and the coun­try has to change not on­ly its way of do­ing pol­i­tics but al­so the eco­nom­ic sys­tem.

While he is sat­is­fied that an im­por­tant his­tor­i­cal build­ing has been up­grad­ed in the 21st cen­tu­ry, he said democ­ra­cy is more than just a build­ing.

"In the econ­o­my, on­ly one per cent has wealth. It is not just in T&T but around the world, the rich are get­ting rich­er and the poor are get­ting poor­er. T&T is suf­fer­ing from the dis­ease as the West­ern World," he added.

Suite: A place of rich his­to­ry, mon­ey spent is worth it

Ap­plaud­ing the re­turn of the Par­lia­ment to its orig­i­nal home in the Red House af­ter years of be­ing re­lo­ca­tion to the Port-of-Spain Wa­ter­front, civ­il en­gi­neer and so­cial/po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Prof Win­ston Suite said it was an im­por­tant and in­te­gral part of T&T’s his­to­ry which need­ed to be pre­served for com­ing gen­er­a­tions.

Much like Besson, Suite said he was heart­ened by the move to re­turn.

The for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Trust said his man­date at one time in­clud­ed bat­tling to pre­serve sev­er­al icon­ic struc­tures around the Red House as they fought to have that site and the sur­round­ing build­ings be list­ed as part of the Her­itage As­set Reg­is­ter.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, he lament­ed the loss of some of the old­er struc­tures as he said that was part of T&T’s his­to­ry which could nev­er be re­cov­ered.

Pro­vid­ing some of the ear­li­est pic­tures and il­lus­tra­tions of the Red House con­tained in var­i­ous his­to­ry books which form part of his per­son­al li­brary, Suite said he of­ten found him­self search­ing for ways on how to pre­serve these build­ings for chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

He said, "We are not on­ly show­ing ar­chi­tec­ture, we are show­ing his­to­ry which is im­por­tant. I am say­ing the mon­ey that the Gov­ern­ment spent on that build­ing is worth it be­cause the end prod­uct is worth it."

Suite said he was among those who had hoped Gov­ern­ment could find and al­lo­cate the nec­es­sary fund­ing to com­plete the restora­tion project as, "That is too im­por­tant a part of our his­to­ry not to sal­vage."