Designed by Jean Omer Marchand and John A. Pearson, the tower is a campanile whose height reaches 92.2 m (302 ft 6 in),[2] over which are arranged a multitude of stone carvings, including approximately 370 gargoyles, grotesques, and friezes, keeping with the Victorian High Gothic style of the rest of the parliamentary complex.

[3] At its base is a porte-cochère within four equilateral pointed arches, the north of which frames the main entrance of the Centre Block, and the jambs of the south adorned by the supporters of the Royal Arms of Canada.

In 2009, the Parliament Hill property manager, Brian Cook, stated that he has seen the flag flown upside down once due to human error.

[6] The Peace Tower was designed by architect John A. Pearson not only to stand as an architectural feature and landmark, but also to function as a memorial to Canadians who had given their lives during the Great War.

A fifth plaque is inscribed with the moving poem "On Going to the Wars" by Canadian writer Earle Birney: I go that we may breast again the Dorset downs in zest and walk the Kentish lanes where I began a larger life in knowing you.

Yet if from seething sky I win reprieve but by the slowing crutch or whitened cane, my doom will yet have helped to hold in bloom old English orchards and Canadian woods unscarred by steel, Acadian and Columbian roofs unswept by flame.

These materials were worked into 700 carved elements by a number of different artists and sculptors under the direction of Ira Lake, who desired to tell not only the complete story of Canada's participation in the First World War, but also to commemorate military units as far back as the 17th century regime of New France.

[17] Around the archivolt at the other end of the entrance passage are sculpted animals and insects, such as beetles, spiders, lizards, butterflies, rats, hares, bats, birds, frogs, and bees; John Pearson stated that these were to represent the flora and fauna of Canada.

The second panel contains the inscriptions: "At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them", taken from the work of Laurence Binyon, and "Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have courage to defend it", from Pericles, as well as, in the lower portion, an armoured figure holding a flambeau, and, in the upper part, St. George slaying the dragon.

Beneath Lady Justice in this panel is the heroic figure of Canada wearing armour and helmet and holding the laurel wreath of victory, but looking mournfully at the Book of Remembrance, and behind her are two other persons, one symbolising Canadian motherhood and the other First Nations.

The second person shown is that of Prosperity, who holds a wheat sheaf and a sicle, and, next to him, is Progress, bearing a winged wheel and with the Lamp of Knowledge above his head.

Arranged in the lower portion of the window is a crowd of people assembled in peace and led by three figures in the foreground and bearing the symbols of their trades: Industry holds a mallet and dynamo, Agriculture bears a scythe, Honour carries a torch inscribed with words from John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields: "Be the torch yours to hold it high", and Motherhood, who is surrounded by children.

[29][30] Accompanying the Peace Tower clock is a 53-bell carillon, conceived by an act of parliament as a commemoration of the 1918 armistice that ended World War I and was inaugurated on 1 July 1927, the 60th anniversary of Confederation.

[2] The Dominion Carillonneur plays both regular recitals on the carillon and tolls the bells to mark major occasions such as state funerals and Remembrance Day.

[9] In the summer of 1925, an informal ceremony was held in the Memorial Chamber, where in Governor General of Canada the Viscount Byng of Vimy; Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King; Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition Arthur Meighen; and the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces during World War I, the Earl Haig, laid the base stones of the clustered marble columns that support the fan vault ceiling.

[36] The Prince of Wales then returned to Ottawa again in 1927 to dedicate the altar of the Memorial Chamber and to inaugurate the Dominion Carillon,[9] the first playing of which on that day was heard by listeners across the country on the first ever coast-to-coast radio broadcast in Canada.

Starting in 1994, the Peace Tower was covered and the accessible spaces closed for a two-year conservation project aimed at reversing deterioration of the masonry and preventing further moisture penetration.