Jane's Walk is offering walking tours as part of the 2025 edition of Ottawa Architecture Week. This year's theme is Mapping the Market: Spatial Anchors & Planned Histories. One of Ottawa’s oldest neighborhoods, the ByWard Market has long been a site of cultural exchange, architectural layering, and collective memory. Changes to Ottawa's downtown are upon us in light of the recent pandemic, city growth, and accelerated development; and changes are being proposed for the Market as part of that evolution: What should we be doing to honour the past while imagining a future that is inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in place?

This tour will take you around the heart of the Byward Market area - Ottawa’s original residential and commercial district. Every building has a story – some is about the architecture, but much is about the people and events associated with various structures along three streets -York, Dalhousie, George. This economically and socially diverse neighbourhood is rich in heritage and in tales about Indigenous peoples, millionaires, female hotel keepers, political riots, commercial innovators, and more. The tour will have about ten thematic stops and will take about one hour. 

Jane's Walk is offering walking tours as part of the 2025 edition of Ottawa Architecture Week. This year's theme is Mapping the Market: Spatial Anchors & Planned Histories. One of Ottawa’s oldest neighborhoods, the ByWard Market has long been a site of cultural exchange, architectural layering, and collective memory. Changes to Ottawa's downtown are upon us in light of the recent pandemic, city growth, and accelerated development; and changes are being proposed for the Market as part of that evolution: What should we be doing to honour the past while imagining a future that is inclusive, sustainable, and rooted in place?