All these recent additions pale in comparison to the CIBC tower: the best-looking building in the area (minus 18 Yorkville!) It will make a nice condo conversion some day. Crystal Blues is okay though.
Yes, I posted a few pages back an interview with the artist that got the commission. He talks about his "idea" so it would definitely appear that the gashes are the artist's fault and not Varacalli's.
The rules of the Public Art process (according to the rules of the City's Public Art Commission) is such that the owner always has the right to reject the results of the mini-competition held to choose an artist and work (in addition, the owner is already one of the "jurors" in choosing the artist and work).
Since Varacelli is a partner at Bazis, the Public Art was certainly approved by him, either expicitly or implicitly.
^ ^ ^ This glass is now up like 8 floors at least. It happened so quickly. I really do like how it looks though, and the grey matches much better with the inset crystal designs than I expected the glass to given what we had seen so far.
I really like the CrystalBlu marketing and logo, though not sure if the building lives up to the image in the banner and the crystals are just so Las Vegas...
This is NOT like BSN whatsoever ... it's more like the tridel project at Y&E expect green paneling verse white ... it's nice ... it's pretty reflective.
I really like the CrystalBlu marketing and logo, though not sure if the building lives up to the image in the banner and the crystals are just so Las Vegas...
The glass crystals are FAR too subtle to be Las Vegas. Now that glass is going up they are hardly visible, but just noticeable enough to create some visual interest.
Las Vegas tackiness and glass etched-in crystals are worlds apart, IMO. Las Vegas would be multicoloured sparkly crystals that are all lit up and glittery... not something designed by a visual artist, like the CrystalBlu pieces.
I walk by this every day to the Good Life Fitness inside the Manulife Centre. I like the glass so far going up. Looks really glossy and kind of looks spectral looking to me. Let's see how the rest of the building looks as more of this goes up but so far I like.
Sorry, but isn't this project called Crystal Blue, not Crystal Grey? I am confused because earlier renderings show the building with an aquamarine colour and not grey. Grey is Toronto's colour though - perfect for all those cold grey winter days...
I noticed that today too, it's clearly the high winds. X, Casa, BSN, Blu & Uptown's cranes are all idle but work continues inside, I saw construction elevators going up and down.
There's a bit of "blu" in those grey panels somewhere which is a little disappointing however I don't see it in the glass but there wasn't much sun today. So far I'm liking this project despite the lack of blu
These are the north, west and south sides of Crystal Blu, respectively
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, then click again on the image for full size.