Could this be the last ROM update? These are already old - from Sunday! That's two days ago already. I'm going by again this evening to see how things are progressing.

It had been a week or so since I'd been by - then, things were in full swing on the remaining bits of cladding. Now, the crystal is substantively complete, and the work crews outside have been replaced by event crews setting up scaffolding for the opening. (You can tell the difference: it's like soldier ants vs. worker ants. The event guys are about half the size of the people who actually built the crystal.)

I have to say, I almost got a little sniffly when I saw it finished - and my only contribution to this project has been to walk by it once every week or so for the past few years, and stare every time. They built a frigging crystal.

Front sign is up. Front entrance: still pretty rough!


"Archictecturally" complete






Philosopher's Walk will soon be ours again:



The central plaza, by the front entrance, has been paved, but they seem to have given up on the sides for now:




Stage going up:








Getting that big-city feeling:


This is from my last visit, just before the last crane left. Canuck is right: it's our new icon. Denver has a big pointy thing, but this - no doubt in part thanks to the ROM's relentless branding effort - has a shape: Toronto's crystal.

 
I love the building, but for some reason I'm having a hard time getting used to the different shades of the cladding.
 
Agreed. It is an amazing architectural concept, marred by very poor quality control at the very end -- you CANNOT tell me that aluminium finishes can't be controlled to far tighter tolerences than shown on the cladding.

Bill
 
maybe?

The cladding was meant to be spotty? Has anyone bothered calling Studio Libeskand to be certain?

Anyhow, with time--snow rain and wind it will get dirty. Leaves getting stuck between the panels? Ya never know. I won't be at the opening--I'm not that into small town society events;)
 
ROM lump of coal

Agreed. The cladding is horrible. And the fact that the window frames or whatever you want to call them are not flush with the aluminum siding also ruins the building.

Was it a question of not enough money? Compare our lump of coal with the Denver Art Museum cladding which is unique, almost quilt-like (almost Gehry-like). And that only cost $95M U.S. (at least according to some of the articles I read when I googled it). Go to their website to compare the difference - http://www.denverartmuseum.org/home
 
goodboys said:
Agreed. The cladding is horrible.
Click to expand...

Why is the cladding horrible?


goodboys said:
And the fact that the window frames or whatever you want to call them are not flush with the aluminum siding also ruins the building.
Click to expand...

Why? For what reason would that ruin the building?


goodboys said:
Was it a question of not enough money? Compare our lump of coal with the Denver Art Museum cladding which is unique, almost quilt-like (almost Gehry-like). And that only cost $95M U.S. (at least according to some of the articles I read when I googled it). Go to their website to compare the difference - http://www.denverartmuseum.org/home
Click to expand...

I like the ROM better: it is anchored within a context the Denver museum will unfortunately never have. The difference in material to me looks as just that: a difference in materials; it has made the project different. It's not like this is school portable aluminum. Did you want the same project twice?
 
goodboys:

I don't think puffy titanium would work well as a material due to geometrical imperfections. Besides, the cladding system used by DAM is completely different from the ROM - basically, titanium on membrane covered sheetroc vs. aluminium cladding on unitized subcladding.

If one wanted an example of tonally varied crystalline structures, try etched iron meteorites.

iron.jpg


AoD
 
I'll put my vote in that this project is absolutely sensational, and will help to re-define the urban experience of Toronto.

I actually am beginning to like the shadings in the cladding, especially from a distance; from the webcam it looks great.

No other project here even comes close.
 
AoD: good point. Which raises the question: why why WHY wasn't the ROM clad in etched iron meteorites? Is Toronto too cheap for a crystal covered in meteorites?
 
^ I'm afraid this burg just is not progressive enough for meteorite cladding. World class my foot!
 
There still seems so much to be done, specially regarding the paving... I wonder if they're gonna meet the deadline!
 
I'm afraid this burg just is not progressive enough for meteorite cladding. World class my foot!
Click to expand...

Meteorites are kinda rare on earth, and apparently the ROM folks did not like the price of going out into space to save on material costs. That would have made the building out-of-this-world class, dammit!
 
Yeah, the mismatched cladding is very unfortunate. I wonder how such a thing could happen. I also wonder why even when we manage to get starchitects for major projects, it doesn't go quite right. OCAD went from a ceramic exterior to corrugated metal, our Foster hardly resembles a Foster and the ROM, while looking great overall, is marred by this colour issue. I wonder if AGO will run into any problems.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top