The Parliament Building of Quebec () is an eight-floor structure and is home to the National Assembly of Quebec (), located in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The Parliament Building was designed by architect Eugène-Étienne Taché in a Second Empire style and built between 1877 and 1886, in the heart of Quebec's Parliament Hill. The National Assembly (or, as it was called until 1968, the Legislative Assembly) first met there on March 27, 1884, even as the building was fully completed only two years later, on April 8, 1886. In 1910s-1930s, the government has built several adjacent buildings to expand its office spaces, creating a parliamentary complex, of which the Parliament Building is the main edifice. The government office, is a successor of several earlier buildings, the earliest of which was built in 1620 and among which there were two other parliament houses that served as legislatures from 1791. Geographically, the building is located in the Place de l'Assemblée-Nationale, in the district of Vieux-Québec–Cap-Blanc–colline Parlementaire, part of the borough of La Cité-Limoilou, just outside the walls of Old Quebec. However, the Parliament Building, along with several adjacent buildings and terrain, have been declared a "national historic site" (), and as such taken away from the control of the provincial Ministry of Culture and Communications and municipalities. This designation notwithstanding, the province of Quebec is signatory to a long-term leasing deal (called emphyteusis) when it comes to the territory in front of the National Assembly, that is, from the front entrance to the fortifications of the old town, as this parcel has belonged to the federal government since 1881. History Precursors Fort and château Saint-Louis In 1620, Samuel de Champlain was ordered to stop further exploration of the New France, of which he was lieutenant governor, and instead asked to engage solely to administration of the newly discovered lands. He therefore ordered the construction of the fort on Cap Diamant, the easternmost extremity of the Promontory of Quebec. Even as the short-lived governments of the Company of Rouen and of the Company of Montmorency were substituted for a more stable Company of One Hundred Associates in 1627, it was not until 1648 that the one-storey chateau St. Louis, built by governor Charles de Montmagny, has become the first permanent official residence of the government of New France; however, by late 1680s, the construction was in a very poor state. A bigger residence