The Daniels Corporation's Cinema Tower condo project on Adelaide Street at Widmer now rises 24 storeys, over half way to its eventual height of 43 storeys, and as cladding details are now appearing on the lower floors we have a better idea of how the project will look upon completion. We took a tour around the exterior of this Kirkor Architects-designed building recently to create a photo-safari progress report.

Cinema Tower rises to the east of the beautiful Commodore Bldg on Adelaide St West, image by Craig White

The most prominent and talked-about feature of the building to date is the terra cotta coloured precast panels which clad the podium of the project. The colourful panels, along with staggered slot windows, will hide a parking garage behind a wall designed to evoke a cliff face. 

The podium of Cinema Tower is clad in a terra cotta precast patterned by vertically undulating striations, image by Craig White

Getting up close to the panels one can easily make out the undulating vertical striations which break up the large flat expanse with eye-relieving texture.

The podium of Cinema Tower is clad in a terra cotta precast patterned by vertically undulating striations, image by Craig White

The south side of the podium awaits its cladding still, while we can see the cream coloured horizontal precast beam under which the lobby glazing will be installed. Artwork yet to be installed by Peter Powning will further evoke the sense of the building's base as a rocky outcrop.

The south side of the Cinema Tower podium awaits its cladding, image by Craig White

Climbing the tower, two storeys worth of cladding above the podium-top amenities show us what this façade will wear. While lichen and cream colored spandrel panels frame windows, a bright stripe of orange enamelled aluminum will run up the side of the building as high as its ornamental crown atop the tower.

Orange panels accent the balcony walls on the west side of Cinema Tower, image by Craig White

On the reverse side of the orange stripes, white enamelled aluminum panels with staggered joins will run up both the west and north façades.

White is the colour chosen to run up several walls on Cinema Tower, image by Craig White

White is the colour chosen to run up several walls on Cinema Tower, image by Craig White

The glazing on the east wall of the building, facing the financial core, shows darker tones in its treatment: black spandrel stripes replace the cream coloured portions which face west. The north and south facades, pushed back behind continuous balconies, will have their ultimate look determined more by the balcony glazing, none of which has appeared yet.

White is the colour chosen to run up several walls on Cinema Tower, image by Craig White

The east face of the podium, as yet unclad, currently reveals the above grade parking garage levels. All of this sits behind the excavation pit for Pinnacle Adelaide, and 40-or-so storey project currently under construction immediately to the east. Most of the Cinema Tower podium will be hidden from John Street vantage points behind Pinnacle Adelaide's podium when complete.

Cinema Tower's east podium face will be mostly hidden by Pinnacle Adelaide, in the pit in the foreground, image by Craig White

Some of the "behind the scenes" slate-gray cladding of the loading areas for Cinema Tower is now in place too.

Cinema Tower's east podium face is starting to pick up some cladding details, image by Craig White

We are looking forward to what more the next few months reveal of the tower's eventual finished look, and we look forward to our first hard hat tour above the sixth floor in a couple month's time!

What's your take on the new cladding details so far? Is Cinema Tower turning out the way you expected? You can see all of the renderings in the UT dataBase listing linked below, and check out the scale model pics in the earlier story linked below too. You are always welcome to join in the dicussion in our associated Forum threads linked below too!