When the sun is hitting it straight on, the tiles look fairly white. This pic was taken at 4PM. Looks allright to me. I think the colour of the building will fluctuate with the sunlight (much like the tiles on the AGO change from a nice deep blue to a crappy light colour depending on the colour of the sky)

If anyone is in the area, please post a shot of the Southwest corner. I'm curious as to what that looks like.

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Amazing the difference in appearance throughout the day. The new tiles in the 4:00PM shot are a nice brilliant white - just as they should be!
 
what the heck are all those little antennas for?
 
caltrane74 said:
Sculptors recycle First Canadian Place marble

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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/848993--sculptors-recycle-first-canadian-place-marble

Toronto builders chose the same Italian marble for First Canadian Place as Michelangelo used for carving his masterpiece David.

Now some of the tower’s stone is to be turned into sculptures as well.

The owners donated 1,600 marble slabs worth $250,000 to a Toronto artists’ group, which publicly begins reworking them Friday into statues and murals.

“The whole idea of creating art from recycled material prompted us to do it,” says Zoya Balija, owner of Leonardo Galleries and a member of the group, Toronto Art Visions.

“This marble is one of the best — Carrara marble from northern Italy,” she said Wednesday. “Its quality is known worldwide.”

The exterior marble panels from Canada’s tallest office building are being removed one by one before they fall off, as one did three years ago — plunging 51 storeys onto a third-floor roof without hitting anybody.

In the 35 years since the tower opened at King and Bay Sts. in 1975, hot and cold weather extremes have caused some panels to warp.

A total of 45,000 slabs are to be removed, replaced by glass resistant to thermal stress, the owner Brookfield Properties Corp. has said. The work began in late 2009 and is to be completed next year.

Each marble panel weighs 90 kilograms but each is slim. Sculptors usually start with a block of stone but these measure four centimetres thick, or 1.5 inches.

“We laminate marble panels to make a block,” says Toronto sculptor Francisco Lostalo, Toronto Art Visions president and the main mover behind what he calls “the world’s first international sculpture symposium to use recycled marble.”

For the gathering, he removed 35 years of pollution-grime from the stone and cut the panels to smaller sizes before gluing them into blocks. Five artists from Canada and Costa Rica are to work outdoors in full public view on the building’s west side.

They are to create medium-sized sculptures and a five-panel painted mural, to be displayed at Leonardo Galleries, 133 Avenue Rd., as completed. The exhibition is to run until Sept. 4, with an opening reception Aug. 26, 6:30-9 p.m.

Next year, Lostalo plans an encore event with full-size panels and 18 artists from more than half a dozen countries.
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Here's the activity taking place in the FCP garden on King:

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Shot from King Street West:

FCP1stReveal1.jpg



Shot through glass (sorry, some small tint unavoidable!):

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FCP1stReveal4.jpg


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Are we seeing the dark corners here? Looks pretty black. Renderings showed a deep-reddish-brown copper I think.
 
We are seeing the dark corners, but like I said, those pics were shot through a window, so you can't say absolutely that the colour or brightness is dead on. Those corners are pretty hidden still anyway...

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caltrane74 said:
looks pretty good anyways..

and the copper has little detailing too... very nice.
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It looks good, yes. But it's too soon to say if the dark corner pieces have any detailing, although I suspect not. The light coloured lines we see on them appear to be part of the replacement platform to me. Note that what appear to be the same lines are also in front of the lighter panels as well, even though we know that those panels are uniform (at least at the scale of these photos).
 
Thanks for the amazing photos! this is looking nice! i'm hoping the glass will stay white. lets hope it doesn't get dirty too soon :p

***Are those "fins" i am seeing on the corners?. or is it just an illusion since the corners aren't done.
 
No, no, just no. This is completely unacceptable; there should be absolutely no tint to the new glass. Why does Toronto keep getting screwed by incompetence? This tint had better be attributed to improper white balancing of the cameras.

Edit: withdrawing some criticism, I didn't realize there was another whole page of photos, in which some show the glass as being completely white. Still, I am very nervous. Even a hint of blue/green and I will deem the entire re-clad a complete failure.
 
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egotrippin said:
Even a hint of blue/green and I will deem the entire re-clad a complete failure.
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And here is a perfect example of what is wrong with UT. Impossibly demanding critics who will accept nothing less than perfection (in their own eyes), no matter the cost or practicality.

In the real world, every project is bounded by limits. The job of the architect is to do the best they can within those limits.

As for myself, I quite like the variable colours of the panels, that change from pure white to a pale blue-green, depending upon the sun's position relative to the panel. It guarantees that the newly reclad FCP will subtly change its colour throughout the day, adding a unique time-dependent quality to its appearance.
 
And here is a perfect example of what is wrong with the casual observer. Impossibly low standards, and a willingness to accept a major design compromise.

It's clear that a lot of money is being spent on this re-clad anyway, and rightfully so. A major aspect of FCP's design was it's perfect pearl white marble, and this in conjunction with its height, created its landmark status. Now I understand the unfortunate realities of using such porous marble, which is why I am willing to accept the major design liberty already being taken (though I would've preferred a white granite re-clad, like the AON Center in Chicago). Saying this, I do like the new vision for the tower, and don't generally hate tinted glass, but in this case it absolutely has to be pure white.

Don't even try to refute this, thanks.
 
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