[Spoonman]

2002... I'm still a young'n

crazy - I hail from that same year. Wedd's (or should I say Weedd's, after that small bust in my last year).

 

[allabootmatt]

Mowbray's '03. My flatmate here in the UK was a Wedd's guy.

 

[Mike in TO]

Minto was testing LEDs last night:

 

[SP!RE]

LED lighting at Yonge/Eglinton. Damn, this city keeps getting sexier and sexier.

 

[CDL.TO]

Those must be bright!

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Nice touch on a great project. Hopefully they are more successful on the buildings there than the art component on The Met

 

[ProjectEnd]

/\ The MET's lighting 'brightens' my day (or night) every time I see it? How will this be 'more successful?'

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

/\ The MET's lighting 'brightens' my day (or night) every time I see it? How will this be 'more successful?'

I just don't think random flickering of different colours at varying shades of brightness for no apparent reason is successful, attractive or stimulating. Until we learned the purpose of the piece, I thought it was still being tested or perhaps the developer had put the completion of the LED piece on hold.

 

[ProjectEnd]

So you don't like the lighting thing on the old Canada Life building either?

I always loved how it looked (Canada Life) - without knowing its purpose, although I did find that out later. I think the MET lighting is interesting, functional and sort of unique. Even if the developer was testing the piece, seemingly random, flickering lights are I ever really expect out of these 'art components,' so maybe our conflict stems from the fact that my sights were set lower than yours.

So what do you expect from an LED component DT Geek?

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

So you don't like the lighting thing on the old Canada Life building either?



I always loved how it looked (Canada Life) - without knowing its purpose, although I did find that out later. I think the MET lighting is interesting, functional and sort of unique. Even if the developer [I]was[/I] testing the piece, seemingly random, flickering lights are I ever really expect out of these 'art components,' so maybe our conflict stems from the fact that my sights were set lower than yours.

So what [I]do[/I] you expect from an LED component DT Geek?[/QUOTE]

Well first, somehow I've known since a kid what most of the lighting on the weather beacon at Canada Life stood for. For those unaware, I think the lighting illuminates most of the top half of the building gracefully and fairly successfully.

I don't know what I expected from an LED art component on the side of a building, more than random flickering, coloured panels I suppose. I don't find the LED component on The Met pleasing, stimulating or informative. I like when lighting enhances a building or it's parts in some fashion or captures a structure's highlights by night. That lead to my comment about the LED's on the roof of Quantum, it would be great in my mind to see the roof elements illuminated successfully by night. It could be very striking and dramatic.

Just my 2 ¢

 

[ProjectEnd]

Interesting comments DT Geek. Personally I love how bright and intense the lights are at the top of Met. I think they really impact the skyline -

Photos: Sneekdes - Night Photography Album - Flickr

I agree that the Quantum lights should be spectacular too.

 

[adma]

So you don't like the lighting thing on the old Canada Life building either?

As a weather beacon, it's technically "functional", rather than decorative.

Oh, and that airship photo's a hoax. In fact, Canada Life had nothing but a flagpole mast until 1951, or whenever the beacon was installed...

 

[CDL.TO]

A good hoax it is, though that would be a really, really small airship. Any more info about that pic, adma?

 

[Andrew3D]

It's no hoax.

from here:http://torontoist.com/2007/05/the_daily_photo_97.php

Once one of the tallest buildings in Toronto, the most marked characteristic of the Canada Life building today is the weather beacon with its cryptic code of flashing lights and colours. We were surprised to find, however, that the beacon feature located 100 metres from the ground was only added in 1951, and it had been originally built as a mooring point for airships—once viewed as the future of luxurious air travel until the rise of the passenger airplane and a series of airship accidents, including the infamous Hindenburg disaster in 1937.

Though the use of airships was waning by the time the Canada Life building was completed in 1931, they were still used for publicity flights, novelty exhibitions (pictured) and war purposes. Another photo of an airship hovering over the building's contruction promised a bright future for Toronto as a global industrial leader, with more grandiose architecture planned for University Avenue. Sadly, most of these projects became casualties of the Great Depression, when the Canadian economy fell further than any other nation besides the United States.

 

[rudeboie]

The photo of the airship attached to Canada Life itself IS a photoshop image.

http://torontoist.com/2007/05/touch_up_toront.php