Montreal Clock Tower

Ville-Marie, Canada

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Standing 45 meters tall in Montreal's Old Port, the Montreal Clock Tower—also known as the Sailor's Memorial Clock—is a Beaux-Arts structure completed in 1922 after construction began three years earlier. Built under the direction of the Montreal Harbor Commission, it was erected as a memorial to seamen lost in the First World War. The tower features a distinctive white exterior composed of a principal structure paired with a smaller 12-meter tower, connected by a 13-meter curtain wall. Four translucent clock faces, each 3.7 meters in diameter and engineered by the English firm Gillett & Johnston, mark the hours. A 192-step internal staircase with three observation stops ascends to the top. Classified as a federal heritage building of Canada, the tower marks the symbolic and functional gateway to the port and represents the economic importance of grain exportation to Montreal during the early twentieth century.