The Lester B. Pearson Building is the headquarters of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It is located at 125 Sussex Drive

Sussex Drive

Sussex Drive is a major street in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and one of the city's major ceremonial and institutional routes....

 in the Lower Town

Lower Town

Lowertown is a district in the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to the east of downtown. It is bounded roughly by Rideau Street to the south, Sussex Drive and Ottawa River to the north, the Rideau Canal to the west, and the Rideau River to the east...

 neighbourhood of Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, and was built between 1968 and 1973. It is named after Lester B. Pearson

Lester B. Pearson

Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, PC, OM, CC, OBE was a Canadian professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat, and politician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis...

, former external affairs minister, Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...

 winner and Prime Minister of Canada

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

.

Because of its forbidding appearance, the building is sometimes unofficially called "Fort Pearson," which also often serves as a synonym for the department that occupies it. It was designed by the Toronto-based architectural firm of Webb Zerafa Menkes

WZMH Architects

WZMH Architects is an architecture company based in Toronto, Canada. The firm was founded in 1961, and is known for the design of landmark structures, skyscrapers, major mixed use, commercial, institutional, residential and hospitality projects, as well as renovation and retrofit projects...

.

The building consists of four "towers", of which three are interconnected from the first to the fifth floor. There is also a sizeable cafeteria located on the first floor which serves not only Foreign Affairs employees but also attracts employees from nearby government facilities. From above the building design vaguely evokes the shape of a sphinx

Sphinx

A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head or a cat head.The sphinx, in Greek tradition, has the haunches of a lion, the wings of a great bird, and the face of a woman. She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless...

 due to Pearson's involvement in the Suez Canal Crisis resolution.

It houses the Ottawa NATO Comcentre.