Frances Bula header image 2

The future of the two-toned Wall Centre tower

Question: If the Wall Centre gets reclad to fix the glass issue, will it remain two toned or which colour will win out?

Answer: Oh, you sly questioner you. (This was from Joe Just Joe, for those too lazy/busy to look back.) You must surely know about the tussle at city hall over this the last few years, with some of us wondering whether the mercurial Peter Wall would finally get his way and, against city hall wishes, finally get the all-black tower he had dreamed of. Gather round, kiddies, and I’ll tell you.

First of all, for those who don’t know the history, Vancouver council approved the final tower for the Wall Centre back in the late 1990s, based on images presented by architect Peter Busby that the building would be a gleaming shaft of light, especially compared to the two other, shorter, dark-glassed towers on the Wall block across from St. Paul’s on Burrard. Then-planning director Larry Beasley was particularly insistent that if the Wall tower was to be allowed up to 300 feet on this high piece of ground, making it prominent on the skyline, it should look transparent.

But lo and behold, when the building started going up in around 2000, the glass looked awfully dark — nothing like the images. People started phoning city hall, complaining that it looked like Darth Vader’s house was being built there. After many in-camera meetings over what to do, the city decided to sue.

Eventually, it turned out that someone in the planning department, presented with a glass sample that looked whitish in the light it was presented, had inadvertently okayed a much darker glass than intended. But then Mr. Wall, who loves dark glass and the solidity it conveys, ordered a glass that was darker still than what had been officially approved. Which means he broke the rules, instead of just bending them. Ultimately, he had to pay the city a fine of a few million and architect James Cheng was brought in to come up with a solution. The solution was to put clear glass on the top third and leave the already mostly in place dark glass on the bottom.

All was quiet for a while. Then in about 2006/2007, I started hearing whispers from city hall that Wall’s people were at city hall saying that the clear glass was causing a terrible problem. The building’s mechanical functions were breaking down because the clear glass did not function at all like the dark glass, in terms of retaining or releasing heat. So air conditioners and heaters were working overtime.

The pitch to the city was: Since we have to replace the glass anyway because of all these problems, how about if we make the whole tower one unified dark building again.

I understand that our now recently departed planning director, Brent Toderian, nixed that idea. Apparently the problem was that, when the Walls were ordered to put clear glass on the top, they never changed the mechanical functions of the building to work better with the new glass. So of course it kept breaking down. City staff advised them on how to get better environmental performance out of the building, but did not okay any darker shade.

My understanding is that the building is going to get new glass, but it won’t be darker. It will just be a new kind that is more energy efficient.

If dark glass suddenly starts appearing on the top, do let City Plumber here know. It will mean either that 1. someone in planning got rooked again 2. someone made a political decision to allow the dark glass after all 3. you’re in an alternate universe.

  • Bill Lee

    Hmm. Any chance of the city enforcing clear or light glass on any broken lower windows?

    I was in a non-Vancouver riot and in that country, rioters could get up to the 6th storey of government offices with stones.

    Still, the whole “arrogant-developer-thumbs-nose-at-city” occurs all over Vancouver, from mansions on Granville to Condo towers.
    With present intertube-connected cameras, can’t the city keep surveillance (along with the surplus police patrols 3 times a day) over suspect sites?

  • Susan Walker

    Oh, one dearly wishes that Peter Wall et al, would, at last, be permitted to make the glass uniform. Anyone who looks at this building KNOWS that the
    “see thru” glass is a mess. WHO wants to look at the back of fridgs/computers etc?

    The reflective glass on the 2 other Wall Centre
    buildings looks lovely on cloudy (and sunny) evenings. PLEASE allow the same glass to be
    installed ALL OVER!

  • Richard

    The black glass looks great and the clearer glass looks horrible. Time to fix it.

  • AW

    Please please please let it be the dark glass. I am so sick and tired of clear bluey-green glass on every damn building in this city, displaying a mess of open, closed and half open ugly grey window shades. The city’s skyline would be much better off with a beautiful gleaming reflective dark tower.

  • Joe Just Joe

    Thanks for the ground work on this one. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were to be reclad all in the darker glass, but the two tone has grown on me. It’s now a part of our history and certainly a conversation piece so I hope you’re right and it does stay.

  • Andrew

    I don’t actually mind the two-tone… it is an interesting outcome. Though by accident it does serve to make the tallest and most visible part of the tower somewhat less stark and opaque, while the darker colour is a nice ground-level contrast as compared with other clear/green glass towers.

  • Brent Toderian

    Great post, frances, I’m copying my comment on your other short post on the subject, here for posterity:

    The title is subtly misleading… if anything, the question might “should it go back to all clear”, since thats what it would actually “go back to”. The black glass was illegal construction, period. It was never intended or allowed to be black.

    The new glass will be less transparent, have a slightly different lightness or ‘colour’ or appearance (colour isnt quite the right word…), be much more energy efficient, and may in fact be the right answer for the whole building… so perhaps it might really “go back” to being light. I for one though, have grown accustomed and even fond of the so-called ‘lipstick-tube”. Because of the lightness/colour change, its one of the more distinctive towers on the skyline in a city where most of the buildings look the same, and i frequently hear compliments, or at least discussion (which is good), around the mixed glass.

    Brent Toderian

  • Jo

    Why not dark glass, at least it would stand out. I absolutely love Vancouver but its biggest city design mistake has to be the sectional aging of its various locations. The West end all looks the same cement oldness, and soon the wall of glass near False Creek will be the same. Having a few buildings that are actually different in theme and colour helps break up a visual scene, other wise everything just blends and ages the same.

  • Lee G.

    Interesting article, I actually support the darker glass; I think it looks much nicer near the bottom than the top.

    I found it entertaining that even after the lighter glass was put in near the top dark blue windowblinds were installed on each window so as to keep the tower slightly more uniform.

    If the tower is going monochrome I really don’t see what the problem with dark glass is. Sure it’s the tallest building in the city right now, but it’s not particularly obtrusive and doesn’t dominate the skyline.

  • Guest

    If the City is in a tizzy over the light/dark glass on One Wall cnetre, why doesn’t it care when towers bear liberal use of light coloured spandrel glass?

    Check out how [ugly] The Mark is turning out versus its dark spandrelled renders:

    http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=174320&page=14

  • Mark

    It will be interesting to see what Peter Wall gets. Any wonder why the director of planning was fired after the election? The same election where Peter Wall pumped A LOT of $$ in the Gregor’s campaign? The big fund raiser the developers’ had at the Fairmont.
    One has to wonder. Remember that money talks!

  • Michael Alexander

    Whatever the problems with the HVAC, the dark glass on the tower was or is failing. A year ago I noticed several dark windows being replaced, and asked a couple of envelope engineers about them. I was told that the building was having significant envelope problems. Given the political history of this structure, you might get the most legitimate answer from envelope engineers.

  • Kirk Williams

    Folks, the windows ARE failing. CBC broke this story:
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/05/13/bc-wall-centre-windows.html

  • Graham

    I think this would be tragic lost opportunity if the glass is not unified. The beautiful, sleek design of the that building is destroyed by the two-tone application of the glass. This is a perfect opportunity to correct this blight. Frankly, at this point it should be the owners and developer who should have the final say in what colour glass they use.