From friend of Price Tags Matt Rubin, a striking shot of The Charleson, the new 43-storey residential tower on the eastern corner of Pacific Boulevard and Richards, in downtown Vancouver.
The coloured facade was just unveiled yesterday. He thinks they’re porcelain or granite slabs; whatever they are, they certainly weren’t in the marketing video.
I have a lovely view of this from home up on W 13th. Such a welcome splash of colour in the seafoam skyline.
One word. Yuk.
Nice to have a splash of colour, but the palette is very 1980s.
The pattern is more detailed towards the base.
It would have been nice if there was more detailing towards the top.
More pics by McMinsen at SSP here:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=8227946&postcount=373
I agree, this seems a bit dated.
Well that stands out. It reminds me of an old iPod billboard.
Yes! We need colour in the our cityscape – we many angular, grey buildings… let’s get some imagination going!
The piece is designed by Ontario born and Vancouver based artist, (and associate professor at Emily Carr), Elizabeth McIntosh. It’s called “Finger Paint” and is most likely powder coated aluminum panels. While photographing the piece for the Changing City blog it became clear that the residents who live across the street from it (or some of them, anyway) seem less keen on it than some other observers!
You are one of the few people to actually credit the artist and provide some background. She was labelled one to watch by those in the art world, which probably impressed the Omni marketing folks, but when you have such a visible element in your architectural design, some community consultation is probably in order.
It seems to me quite an ironic twist when compared to the dark glass escapade of the Peter Wall building, which I always preferred over the lighter glass. But I digress – that was an arguement on principle, and this is more of a debate of artistic merit and style.
Everyone has distinct preferences on what they hang over their couch, but not everyone will agree on an inspired work of art. Nor does everyone get to choose what building appears outside their windows.
Personally, I think it was a mistake to comission an artist for this task, and I think a gradated blend of two colours would have sufficed. Teal to orange? Burgandy to blue? Add a course halftone sceen, and – done? Any graphic artist grad could have pulled this off.
And any starting [ed: starving?] artist could have really used that commission, I’m sure. But at the end of the day, I don’t need to look at it, so it’s not really my problem.