We were fortunate enough today to tour the Monarch Group and Goldman Group's Picasso Condos, a 39-storey tower to the west of Downtown Toronto which is quickly establishing itself as a landmark, easily one of the most memorable buildings of our current building boom. The Teeple Architects-designed structure features a facade articulated into a series of brightly-clad projecting volumes, emphasized through the contrasting use of darkly clad backgrounds.

There's a lot to show of this unique building, so our coverage will be split over a number of stories. Our first article covers today's removal of the development's tower crane, while we will be back next week to delve into several other aspects of the project in depth.

Picasso Condos, viewed from King Street West, image by Jack Landau

In the increasingly dense Entertainment District, Picasso is most often seen in three-quarter view, where the building is set apart from the crowd with vibrant dashes of red aluminum cladding. Now topped off, today was the day for the disassembly and removal of the tower crane.

Tower crane being removed in sections at Picasso Condos, image by Marcus Mitanis

Arriving on a 5th floor balcony on the south side of Picasso's podium, we came encountered the apex of the tower crane being lowered via a temporary derrick on the roof, down to an awaiting flatbed truck on Richmond Street West below.

Crane apex being lowered at Picasso, image by Jack Landau

For a look at the temporary derrick being used to lower dismantled sections of crane, we headed up to Picasso's roof, where crews were busy working on the crane removal process.

Sections of crane in the foreground, with temporary derrick visible to the rear, image by Marcus Mitanis

With the tower crane now gone, and cladding pushing its way towards the mechanical penthouse level, we are now getting a much better idea of how the completed tower will look, which has stayed very true to pre-construction renderings so far.

Picasso, captured from a distance the day prior to crane removal, image by Jack Landau

All piled up and waiting to be installed are a number of the remaining cladding sections.

Cladding panels await installation near the top of the building, image by Marc Mitanis

Next up we will give you a more close-up view of the spaces in and around Picasso's projections when we return.

Additional information and renderings can be found in our dataBase file for Picasso, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment using the space provided at the bottom of this page.