Toronto Royal Ontario Museum | ?m | ?s | Daniel Libeskind

I'm also curious to see if those stark lines where the cladding strips butt together will remain in the final product.
 
What else can they do? It is all the more noticeable when they're of a different tonal range - you can see an entire section like that in the third image . Up close, you can see the screw heads at the "butt" point too.

The tonal difference might have been less noticeable if the panels had been "staggered" randomly rather like in a hardwood floor ... but that would have made their application much more complicated!.
 
They probably can't have these cladding pieces right up against each other end to end without problems with thermal expansion?

AoD
 
I'm sure I'll get blasted for this...

Yikes! I thought the final cladding was going to be smooth and not so much like this school-portable-looking facade they're doing. Perhaps I just need to wait until it's all done so the whole looks greater than the sum of the parts.
 
I think a lot of the tonal differences are attributable to the film that's still on the pieces. The metal looks consistently white in all of the areas where the film is peeled back.

And I haven't had a really close look at what they're doing, but I would imagine the lines between butt joints will be disguised with splice plates. It would be the standard thing to do for something like that, or possibly they might caulk it, but I think splice plates would look better.
 
I was there several days ago and asked a couple of the workmen if all the protective strips had been removed from one area where the tonal variations was pronounced, and I was told that they had.
 
unfortunate

I believe that the cladding is like this due to the need to prevent snow from accumulating and creating avalanche conditions on Bloor West.
 
Im beginning to think I liked the under cladding better than the final cladding:S
 
I'm as big a cheerleader of this project as anyone'll find, but that does not look promising. Most seem to agree that the cladding is make-or-break with this bldg, which makes this all the more troubling. It simply doesn't look good to my eye, and the spaces between the cladding strips is something of an unwelcome surprise to me.

Worried. Very. For the first time, I have an uneasy feeling about the whole thing - a serious eyesore is apparently not impossible here, unfortunately.
 
Relax Brian. Sit down. It will be alright. The Crystal shape is dramatic, and offers spectacle, which is pretty unique for a Toronto building. It will draw people here in the tens of thousands, as intended. And they'll all go inside to see our wonderful museum collections. Besides, if the "dappled" look of differently hued cladding panels becomes too much to bear they can always replace a few of them like they did on FCP in the 1970's when the marble didn't match. The manufacturers are German, after all, and you can't get more anal than German manufacturers who want everything to be perfect. Also, the panels aren't some ghastly colour, they're grey which is the ultimate, cool neutral. And they're applied in parallel lines which creates uniformity. And the gaps between them are uniform. And as the sun moves across the sky and the ambient light changes, the building will always reflect the conditions that surround it. Everything is gonna be alright, really it will.
 
The gaps were always there... this the whole point of the complex system (rain, snow channeled underneath the exterior).

Look at the rendering. Look at the cladding close-up shot (2 years old).
 
Pictures don't really do it justice. Walk up to it and look at it from different angles. I think it will turn out just fine. i can't wait to just lean up against the cold aluminum cladding on a warm winters night.
 
I don’t understand why people are so surprised with the look of the cladding because it looks very similar to what was portrayed in the renderings. Personally I prefer the aluminum over the billowy titanium used on the Denver project.
 
I really want to love the ROM addition. I walked by the site today, though, and I am very disappointed. The building certainly has "WOW" power. That much is undeniable. Yet, at the same time, the addition is jarring when placed between the two older wings.

The cladding is also a huge disappointment. Some sections were exposed without their protective covering, and it appeared so dull that it was underwhelming. It looked unfinished, at best.

I hope that the final touches will prove me wrong. As I said, I really want to love th ROM addition, but right now, I'm thinking that Gehry's AGO expansion will turn out to be the true gem of the cultural boom - intricate, eccentric, understated, and somehow oh-so Toronto-ish.

Time will tell.
 
How would you describe a quintesentially Toronto tower? A traditional Toronto row house is clear as is a Toronto loft, high school, neighbourhood high street. To a lesser extent there is a Toronto style road and highway.

From my travels around the world, there definitely is a distinct Toronto quality to buildings here. I haven't quite nailed it down, but there is an orderly purposeful look to everything. Traditional embellishments rule although Trump's silly little hat atop it's proposal would be a departure from that.

There also seems to be something lacking to how we finish towers at the top. The BCE Canada Trust Tower made a noble effort at it, but missed slightly. The proportions are off abit.

Toronto isn't shy to experiment though. The CN Tower, Rogers Centre, ROM, AGO, Roy Thomson Hall. Even these supposedly unconservative projects have an orderliness to them. Perhaps it's remnants of Toronto's staid Scottish roots lingering around. That added to Toronto's new flashy glamourous bent should ensure that we avoid major missteps as we move forward. Well lets hope.
 
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