Red House

The Red House is the seat of Trinidad and Tobago's parliament and one of the most distinctive buildings in the Caribbean. The current structure, rebuilt after the 1903 fire in a Renaissance revival style, gets its name from its vivid terracotta exterior, repainted before Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It stands on Woodford Square in the heart of downtown Port of Spain.

The building was extensively renovated between 2015 and 2021, and parliament now sits in a modern annex, but the original structure remains the symbolic heart of the country's democratic life. Guided tours of the interior can be arranged through parliament. Woodford Square in front of it is a public gathering space that has hosted political rallies throughout the country's history — it was here that Prime Minister Eric Williams held the mass political meetings that led to independence in 1962.

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The Red House was stormed twice in the twentieth century. In 1903, a crowd of 10,000 protesting water rate increases burned down the building. In 1990, members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen Islamist group seized parliament during a coup attempt, holding 47 hostages including the Prime Minister for six days. The 1990 coup was the most serious political crisis in Trinidad's history.

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