Ottawa Pavilion history

Year land acquired: 1868

Left: Earl of Aberdeen / Governor General of Canada, April 1895.

About 3,000 people attended opening night, featuring a performance by the Band of the 43rd Rifles and it was officially opened Sept 19, 1898.

Excerpt of illustrated graphic, Central Canada Exhibition Prize List, 1900, depicting aerial view of the grounds.

The Aberdeen Pavilion, 1903.

Begun in 1909, the Ottawa Rough Riders football team moved to Lansdowne Park for its games.

In 1925, Lansdowne hosted the first of five Grey Cup games.

Aberdeen Pavilion, June 1945.

After the War, the Aberdeen Pavilion resumed operating as an exhibition building for the CCEA when the Central Canada Exhibition was revived in 1947.

In 1973, the CCEA turned the operation of Lansdowne Park over to the City of Ottawa.

In July 1979, the City’s planning board approved LACAC’s recommendation that the Aberdeen Pavilion be designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act, but City Council voted to withhold designation until a feasibility study could be completed.

The City of Ottawa followed by confirming the building’s designation under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act in February 1984.

By late 1986 the Aberdeen Pavilion’s condition had deteriorated to such an extent that the building was condemned.

But with cost estimates ballooning to $82 million, City Council voted on August 7, 1991 to scrap the entire project and to demolish the heritage-designated Horticulture Building as well as the Aberdeen Pavilion, which by this time had become a visual blight on the landscape.

Conservation architect Julian Smith was appointed to head the project in 1993.

That commitment is evident in the organization’s decision in 2001 to integrate an illustration of the Aberdeen Pavilion in the organization's logo.