page_title: Rideau Hall
section_title: Decor and furnishings
hierarchical_section_title: Rideau Hall / Decor and furnishings
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Rideau Hall, Ottawa
context_page_description: Rideau Hall is the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and his or her representative, the Governor General of Canada. It stands in Canada's capital on a 0.36-square-kilometre estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main building consisting of approximately 175 rooms across 9,500 square metres, and 27 outbuildings around the grounds. Rideau Hall's site lies outside the centre of Ottawa, giving it the character of a private home. It is one of two official royal residences maintained by the federal Crown, the other being the Citadelle of Quebec.
  Most of Rideau Hall is used for state affairs, only 500 square metres of its area being dedicated to private living quarters, while additional areas serve as the offices of the Canadian Heraldic Authority and the principal workplace of the governor general and his or her staff; either the term Rideau Hall, as a metonym, or the formal idiom Government House is employed to refer to this bureaucratic branch.
context_section_description: Rideau Hall has long been a collection point for Canadian art and cabinetry. As early as the first viceregal inhabitants, the hall has held pieces by prominent Canadian cabinet makers, such as Jaques & Hay of Toronto, James Thompson of Montreal, and William Drum of Quebec. Originally, the interior decoration was heavily Victorian, with many Rococo influences. Renovations, however, have turned the interiors into predominantly Georgian spaces, with Adam and Palladian elements. Until the 1960s, the contents and colours of the house changed with each successive royal and viceroyal family; the consort typically seeing it as her duty to update Rideau Hall to suit both her personal and contemporary tastes. As there were few paintings in the palace's permanent collection, the National Gallery would provide works on loan; a relationship that continues into the present.
  Today the rooms are furnished both with elements from the history of the residence as well as art and other objects that showcase contemporary Canadian culture, including pieces by the Group of Seven's Lawren Harris, Emily Carr, Jean Paul Lemieux, and Bill Reid. The Long Gallery's Chinoiserie decoration was restored in 1993 at the direction of Gerda Hnatyshyn, wife of Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, putting back much of the furniture and artifacts that had been collected by the Machioness of Willingdon throughout her tour of China in 1926. The space, used to greet and host functions for ambassadors and high commissioners to Canada, now contains five carpets donated by the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and a Steinway & Sons baby grand piano that belonged to Glenn Gould. Other consorts left their mark on Rideau Hall, such as Princess Louise's painted apple branches on a 6-panel Georgian door (into the room adjacent to the Pauline Vanier Room) in the first-floor corridor and Nora Michener's donated collection of Inuit sculpture. Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, not only oversaw the extensive repainting of the state rooms from a consistent white to more historically accurate and polychrome palette, but also worked with Ontario potter Bill Reddick to develop Rideau Hall's first Canadian porcelain state dinner service.
  Since Vincent Massey's time as governor general, the viceroy has worked closely with the Department of Public Works and Government Services in repairing and refurbishing Rideau Hall; the department now provides a more systematic approach to the maintenance of the palace, with a full-time building manager in charge of the project. The National Capital Commission is charged with the decoration of the rooms; since 2004 the commission has undertaken a project to restore many of the salons and other state rooms to the period in which they were first built. Many pieces—objets d'art, paintings, sculptures, books, furnishings, and rugs—are drawn from the Crown Collection, so that, in Adrienne Clarkson's words, "the mix of furniture and other objects here now reflects the country, the people who came and settled here, and became part of the Canadian story."
caption: The Long Gallery features Chinoiserie decorations collected by the Marchioness of Willingdon
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