Architects of all stripes are fond of creating such analogues - Libeskind's Crystal was supposedly derived from a crystal he saw at the ROM, Diamond describes his opera house as "an egg in a nest " etc. It's just a way of getting across an idea, of doing a bit of a sales job.
 
From the rock crystals found in the foothills near Denver. The five 'Flatirons' mountains are actually closer to Boulder, Colorado.
 
I read a quote from Diamond where he also described his new hall in Montrel as "an egg in a nest". Lots of eggs, lots of nests, lots of crystals, northern lights, luminous veils, floating tabletops ... everything gets an analogue.
 
You would never hear an architect say, the client wanted me to design a building for the least amount of cost, that barely meets building code standards for the greatest return on investment. Which is closer to the truth than fake inspiration. When it comes to designing a building for anyone but a client's own use, $$$ speaks, before design. That doesn't necessarily mean bad design, it just means comprimise somewhere along the line between the sketch on the napkin to the last coat of paint.
 
Not to say that what you've described doesn't happen, but a 'good' architect sees the budget he or she was assigned as just as real a parameter (constraint?) as the size of the site or the building's intended program.
 
urbandreamer said:
How many of you have actually seen the northern lights?

They're quite astonishingly beautiful, unlike this building. (I wonder if Wallman has seen them?)
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A few weeks ago, there was a very bright display of the northern lights. I had a great and bright view of them from the west side of downtown. They were crimson (which I haven't seen before - usually green) and made the sky look like it was on fire.

The aurora borealis is not some rare phenomenon that only happens in the far north.
 
I grew up in northwestern Ontario, and I can definitely say that the aurora borealis was so common there that I personally grew sick of it. I remember on many occasions going outside for some star-watching, and the stars would be obscured over most of the sky by the aurora, it might as well have been cloudy.

Mind you, there were a few occasions when the aurora was SO spectacular that I just had to watch. One time in particular, the aurora was incredibly bright and concentrated in the form of a rainbow, composed of a swarm of tiny dots growing brighter and dimmer, and individually changing colour. I have never before or after seen anything like it.
 
urbandreamer said:
How many of you have actually seen the northern lights?

They're quite astonishingly beautiful, unlike this building. (I wonder if Wallman has seen them?)
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that's a typical snotty and sneering comment that should not be left to go unchallenged. Make contemptuous remarks if you want, but they are hollow unless you provide us with a rendering of your northern lights inspired tower.

The two front page stories UT has devoted to 10 York, BTW, have been our most "liked" in quite a while, so it would seem that more than the average number of UT readers are looking forward to this one.

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Agreed. Personally, I am much more concerned about the preliminary design of its eastern neighbours.
 
I am not "dissing" Ten York--it's ok however I did prefer the original design--but this does not compare to the northern lights spectacle. I too grew up in rural Ontario--north enough to see them fairly often--and in particular, the 1997 season was the standout for me.

The current ten york design is growing on me, but is it "astonishingly" beautiful?
 
urbandreamer said:
The current ten york design is growing on me, but is it "astonishingly" beautiful?
Click to expand...

I don't think any architect would claim that anything they could build would be as beautiful as the northern lights, and I don't think that Rudy Wallman is saying that here. I don't believe he would use the word "compare" either. What he can claim, and does, is that the lights have inspired this design and that he is trying to evoke them in architecture. As PE notes above, he has to do that within budget too, (and who knows what part of the expected $295 million will be spent on what here, that's for Tridel to say).

Wallman is a talented guy who is too well grounded to claim that he is designing something to rival the northern lights, he's just trying to evoke them here, and I likes what I sees so far! It's going to be interesting to see how those aspirations are made concrete, or at least made glass and steel and LED, over the next few years.

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