Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 6: Georges Baussan's National Palace
Summary: How the National Palace came to be built: the competition of August 1912, the requirement that the main façade open north, and the vast but imprecise brief for vestibules, reception rooms, the head of state's office, archives, telegraph, galleries and council chamber.
Key Findings
- The article says the National Palace powder magazine exploded at 3:30 a.m. on 8 August 1912, destroying the wooden and masonry palace and killing nearly two hundred people, including President Cincinnatus Leconte.
- Competition rules for a replacement palace were published in Le Moniteur on 30 October 1912, and about twenty projects were displayed for fifteen days at the Chamber of Deputies.
- On 2 August 1913, the jury selected the Petit Nid project by Haitian architect Georges Baussan, age 38, and construction began in May 1914 under Simmonds Freres with Leonce Maignan supervising.
- ISPAN's 2009-2010 operating allocation was 15,487,065 gourdes, of which 96 percent was to go to salaries, while the investment budget received 0 gourde.
- The bulletin says ISPAN had only 14,000 gourdes per month for electricity, water, telephone, Internet and transport for its Cap-Haitien and Port-au-Prince offices, plus 10,000 gourdes per month for expendable supplies and cleaning products.
- Works to redevelop Jacmel's Toussaint-Louverture square began in 2003 and were completed in October 2009 under ISPAN supervision.
Full Description
How the National Palace came to be built: the competition of August 1912, the requirement that the main façade open north, and the vast but imprecise brief for vestibules, reception rooms, the head of state's office, archives, telegraph, galleries and council chamber. One issue of the Bulletin de l'ISPAN, the monthly bulletin of Haiti's Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National, which ran from June 2009 to at least November 2011 and documented one monument, site or historic center per issue.
How to cite
Institute for the Protection of National Heritage (ISPAN), 2009, Bulletin of the ISPAN, No. 6: Georges Baussan's National Palace, https://www.haiti.org/