In February 2019, the Senate moved to the Senate of Canada Building, a former train station built in 1912. The Senate will occupy this temporary location while Parliament’s Centre Block — the Senate’s permanent home — is rehabilitated.

Although Centre Block is shuttered for rehabilitation work, Canadians can still experience its art and architecture through the Senate’s immersive virtual tour.

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If there is a single structure that symbolizes Canada, it’s the Peace Tower. Soaring over Parliament Hill, it’s a landmark recognized around the world that has been a source of national pride for nearly a century.

“It stands as a real sentinel,” House of Commons Chief Curator Johanna Mizgala said. “People recognize it in photographs and instantly associate it with Ottawa and Parliament.”

The familiar silhouette will soon vanish from public view, at least temporarily. A 92-metre-tall envelope of steel scaffolding will engulf the tower while it undergoes masonry and structural upgrades as part of the Centre Block rehabilitation project.

Rising from the ashes

The Peace Tower was built between 1919 and 1927 to replace the Victoria Tower, destroyed when the original Parliament Building — completed in 1867 — was consumed by fire in February 1916, two years into the First World War.

Nothing of the original building could be salvaged beyond the Library of Parliament. Regardless, reconstruction on a new Parliament building began almost immediately and moved at a determined pace.

Designed by architects John A. Pearson and Joseph-Omer Marchand, its central tower soared to a height of 92.2 metres — 37 metres taller than its predecessor. Sleek and imposing, it was the tallest structure in Canada at the time.

“For decades you weren’t allowed to build anything in Ottawa as tall as the Peace Tower,” Ms. Mizgala pointed out. “It was important to preserve sight lines to the tower.”

A naming contention

The tower’s name remained up in the air for years. The press often referred to it as the Victory Tower, but the chief architect held to a more conciliatory vision. Pearson reminded Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King that, during the 1919 cornerstone-laying ceremony, the Prince of Wales had referred to the structure as the Peace Tower, expressing a desire for lasting peace many shared.

The new Centre Block, with its iconic Peace Tower, opened to the public in 1927, with 60,000 people attending a Canada Day ceremony on Parliament Hill that was broadcast live across the country.

For whom the bells toll

The centrepiece of the tower — its 54-tonne, 53-bell carillon — is an imposing reminder of Canada’s First World War sacrifices. The idea for a bell tower came from George H. Bradbury, a Manitoba senator who had served as a battalion commander on the Western Front. Moved by the peal of church bells ringing across the smouldering battlefields, he proposed the carillon shortly after his appointment to the Senate in 1917, well before the tower’s first stone had been laid.

Memorializing the fallen

At the heart of the tower lies the Memorial Chamber, one of Canada’s most sacred spaces. The three-storey vaulted chapel honours the nation’s war dead and houses the Books of Remembrance.

“Pearson imagined the Memorial Chamber as a sacred grove,” Ms. Mizgala said. “A space illuminated by dappled light streaming in through stained-glass windows — as if you were seeing it through the branches of trees.”

At its centre stands a limestone altar supporting the First World War Book of Remembrance, which records the names of more than 66,000 Canadians killed in action. Seven additional altars hold similar volumes covering conflicts from the War of 1812 to the 2001–2014 Afghanistan mission.

“One of the lovely hallmarks of the Books of Remembrance is that they’re not in hierarchical order,” Ms. Mizgala noted. “You don’t have generals coming first. Names appear in the order in which they fell in battle.”

Pearson’s attention to symbolic detail bordered on the obsessive. In 1921, he visited the battlefields of France and Belgium at his own expense to source stone for the project. Hopton Wood limestone, donated by the British government, forms the central altar. France contributed Chateau-Gaillard stone for the walls and vault. Belgium donated marble from Flanders Fields for the columns and steps.

“That was at a time where we didn’t bring our war dead home. They were buried where they fell,” Ms. Mizgala explained. “For families who would never see their loved one’s grave, there’s something beautifully poetic about a sacred space that allows them to walk on the same soil as their loved ones.”

Near the top of the tower, four 2.5-metre-long gargoyles project from the tower’s corners. Just above them sits the observation level at a height of 60 metres and, above it, a nearly 5-metre-wide clock face.

A porte-cochere — a covered entrance over a driveway — forms the base of the Peace Tower. Carvings of regional plants and animals, historical figures, mythical creatures and provincial emblems adorn the entrance.