CN Tower: Now in Strawberry, Lemon, Lime, and Grape
Photo: "rainbowtower" by Sean Galbraith, blogTO Flickr Pool contributor.
Ok, so maybe I'm being too cynical. A couple of weeks ago we gave you the heads up that the CN Tower would soon be sporting a flashy new set of colourful lights, and last night the system was caught on camera during a test run.
Is lighting up our tourist-attracting skyline structure in neon colours tacky, and likely to draw criticism from city-dwellers, or is it a brilliant idea worthy of praise by pround Torontonians?
Like it or hate it? Or is indifference the flavour of the day?
Big thanks to Sean for capturing the sneak peek preview of the tower in its many colours. The LED system is set to debut in late June.
UPDATE: more stunning photographs from other Toronto photographers (with LuminaTO Pulse beams included) after the jump!
Photo by mossproductions.ca.
Photo by mossproductions.ca.
Comments (54)
Only the green please. That one I could enjoy, hell maybe even some sort of silver..but the others..ugh. No thanks!
Cool pics of it though!
You're welcome :-)
Amazing what you see driving down the Gardiner at 11pm at night. Unfortunately, the LuminaTO pulse streaks didn't show up in the photos.
The CN Tower is so drab looking otherwise that I think this looks tres awesome. One of my favorite things to see while traveling through Europe was how some cities would light up their castles and parliament buildings on weekends in varying lightshows. If I started to pour the haterade on this, I'd be kinda hypocritical.
If the tower is illuminated red, and the Dome purple (as it often is), are people that lived through the 80's going to write city hall in disgust because the two "clash"? ;)
Good point, Jerrold. I think I'll have to see it for myself along the rest of the skyline before I make any judgment of this.
So is this going to be a nightly thing, or just for special events?
Stepped out onto my balcony last night and caught this show totally by surprise. I have to say the photos don't quite capture how cool it actually looked - the colours pulsed and shifted, and occasionally they scintillated with a whole bunch of different colours at once - the overall effect was surprisingly cool. Yes, not everyone is going to agree about the choice of colours they see, but keep in mind these LEDs can shift between MILLIONS of colours, so we're not stuck with any one of em - you'll see one up there you'll like. Plus, with a bit of skill, they can program a pretty neat light show. Sorry not to conform to the typical "oh my god, if it's new, it must be derided" school of thought on this, but I hate that old wasp-y Toronto pessimism. I'm as cynical as they come, but I liked this. Bring on the new.
And put a kicking sound system in to pulse this along to! Skyline rave, here we come....
I think it'd look better if they didn't light up the elevator shafts... Not a fan of the 'stripe' effect myself. The top looks good though
I think it looks great. In Auckland, New Zealand, where I've lived the past fifteen years, there are similar coloured lights on the Sky Tower.
At Christmas, the tower is green and red. During Breast Cancer Awareness month, it's pink, etc. Of course, New Zealand's national colour is black, for which they can simply turn the lights off. ;-)
One question though: What's the energy consumption for the lighting? They have carbon offsets factored in, I assume?
They're LEDs, which are generally very low power consumers. They likely use even less power than the traditional lights the tower has, but I'm only guessing.
Jerrold: The claim is that they use just 10% of the energy consumed by the tower's previous lighting set-up; however, that's still 100% more than leaving it be.
That looks awesome! I can't wait to see it all the time. All the colours look great. It reminds me of the Target building in Minneapolis, where the top of the building has a light system that changes patterns, designed to imitate Northern Lights: http://www.martinpro.com/casestory/casestory.asp?id=588
I agree with Oli and the others, it looks cool, especially with the LuminaTO lights.
Toronto is too stuck-up and worried about image.
I'm glad we are finally doing something with our beautiful tower, I'm not convinced however, that this is the right thing to do. I wish the panel that decides these things would consider sharing the responsibility of coming up with concepts, an open source mentality, rather than the traditional closed doors method with big, and usually disappointing, reveal. I feel that Torontonians have always wanted our tower to have a greater, Eiffel Tower esque, night presence, it's just a shame that "they" didn't tap into the rich creative community that recognize Toronto, and the CN Tower, as home.
That's what I think,
Mike Dudek
Wow! Those two new photos have convinced me; I like it! I can't wait to see the different light animations in person.
I agree with Japhet, too. There's too much resistance against things new and different in this city, especially when it comes to architecture. LuminaTO, Nuit Blanche, and other festivals that have made a different take on the city's public spaces have shown that change can be a good thing.
I'd be happy to see Pulse Front become maybe a weekly event, or return for holidays like Canada or Victoria Day.
I live right next to the tower and was watching the entire show last night, and I think its amazing. Finally doing something with the CN tower other than just blinking lights for planes. The CN tower is supposed to be a show of Canada's and more so Toronto's diversity and strength, its about time we show it off a little more!!! Very cool, and I cant wait to see some more!!!
This is only by night, right? During the day, it's the same CN Tower we know and love, and now by night it's also the same CN Tower we know and love, just illuminated instead of, y'know, too dark to be seen at all. 24 hour tower sounds good to me.
I just got back from a week away and I step out of a friend's place downtown and I'm like WHOA BRIGHT GREEN CN TOWER what happened to this place while I was gone?!
Took me quite a while to decide how I felt about it, but in the end I decided I did like it, based on that normal-darkness vs normal-colours dichotomoy.
Greg Smith: Lighting up the tower is 100% more awesome than not lighting it at all.
Otherwise, let's all turn our computers off and really save a chunklet of power.
I vote for a night where they light up the CN Tower and the Skydome both in purple and play classic Prince from the loudspeakers all night long.
haha I LOVEEEe it!!! And it's awesome that this is a permanent decision! When I saw it for myself last night I thought it was just temporary for Pride. Especially when the tower lit up in all rainbow colours! lol
When I first heard about this I was pretty skeptical of how it might turn out but this looks much better than I expected.
Wasn't the CN tower an engineering marvel when it was first constructed 30 years ago? Wasn't it daring and bold for a city to have such a ridiculously massive tower right in the middle of its downtown core? It gave Toronto an identity and a great view of the city. This new design goes a long way to recapturing that daring, bold feel to me and as somebody else said... it's a whole lot better than plain old concrete.
I like it.
I love the colours. The Eiffel Tower is a beautiful structure by day, and at night they not only illuminate it with regular white lights, but every half hour or so they put on CRAZY GLITTERING LIGHTS OF MAJESTY(tm) for five minutes. It really works. I want Toronto to have a little of that glitz and glamour. Why not draw more attention to the tower? It's a symbol of our city and deserves a little fun... Jerrold makes a good point however, it better not clash with the dome.
i think they should do this with more buildings in the city like the new ROM thing up on bloor, or maybe the BMO building at king and bay...
tons of other cities around the world like hong kong and bankok, and a bunch of others do it.. and it seems to improve there night skyline!
I like the lights on the CN Tower !
It makes it more visible by night, instead of a just a gray concrete building with 2 flashing lights
I think its about time that Toronto showed off its best architectural wonder by doing something super-creative with the LED lights. Not only will it attract more tourism, it will brighten up the city more, and for once, more Torontonians will stop, and absorb its beauty instead of simply walking by it - just "knowing that its there".
The photos are AWESOME. If you are a boring, self-centred, anit-social shut-in, you wouldn't like the lights, otherwise, I would say they did a great job. The lights are top notch. I want to know how I can to that to my house! :)
I like the pictures, but no... not for Toronto. What are we Las Vegas? The mayor says we are short 1 billion dollars a year, and so... we up the tax's of Torontonians, and spend at least 40 million dollars putting up these lights? What, and who are thinking? I barley even live and Toronto and I understand what they are feeling. Liek could they have atleast made it more sophisticated? CLASSY NOT TRASHY!
I agree with one of the other bloggers, the CN tower looks like a giant concrete shaft. Not very attractive looking! They had to do something and I think this is a great start.
Jillian, it's something you definitely have to see in person first (or on video). The animation/lighting transitions are pretty cool.
I'll be attending their media launch Thursday where I'll (hopefully) get some video of the whole thing. That'll probably give you a better idea of what to expect.
I think it's a fantastic idea! Like someone above said, much like the Eiffel Tower defines Paris, the CN Tower defines the Toronto skyline - and while the Parisians celebrate THEIR tower every evening with a dazzling light show, so should we! For too long it's been just a drab grey concrete post - time to show it off in style.
I think its really cool! I stepped out onto my balcony about 2 weeks ago, saw it, and was mesmerized. I like that it modulates, changes colour, and be programmed to show patterns/ripples/animations. It uses a fraction of the energy than the previous lighting system, and it only stays on for a few hours every night. Kudos!
tell the programmer to add a sparkle, and chill with the lamo chasing custom rainbow........you got whole thing running on 1 Iplayer2 or what?.....
Light it up, foundation to spire....
run out to a lighting tech and say "your turn!"
bang on the doors of westbury show systems for voulenteer programmers. Its just another day, and all the light are pointing up anyways.....get a artist or two in there and make something interesting, NOT MESMERIZING!
HELLO
Peter, they were doing that in June... now it's sticking to Canadian colours and only doing a short light show at the top of each hour.
Sched here:
http://cntower.ca/portal/GetPage.aspx?at=1583
I am really late becoming aware of what happens to the Tower at night, because I'm usually down in the daytime. As somebody born in Toronto (and loving this City with a passion) I'm delighted to see that we are lighting up the Tower, and I think it looks great. Some of the comments surprise me, as they seem to be written by people who need to get over themselves, or have an agenda.
We live in an exciting City...relax and enjoy it, people!
They are in fact lighting it Purple on Purple Day, 26th March 2009, not in honour of Prince but to raise awareness of Epilepsy. See http://www.purpleday.org/ and www.epilepsytoronto.org/
Lavender is the international colour for epilepsy.
The CN Tower was lit before but, with incandecant lighting. In which the new LED lighting is 60% more energy conserving. And 10% more conservative than if they would have chosen a fluorescent install.
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EcoLightCorp.com
LED Lighting uses less energy, Saves on Lighting Costs. $$
LED Lighting is LongerLasting, Saves on Maintanance Fees. $$
LED Lighting is a Healthy Alternative as a Lighting Source
And YES we have a Retro-Fit for all of Todays Light Fixtures.
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EcoLightCorp.com
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The CN Tower was previously lit with Incandescent Lighting, back in 1997.
LED Lighting uses 60% LESS Energy Than Incandescent.
LED Lighting uses 10% less energy than fluorescent lighting, which was the previous update.
The New LED Lighting Lasts longer, average of 10yrs, Lowering Maintanance Costs.
Plus its Dimmable and Programable. With RGB Technology its Easy to Create Beautiful Spectrum of Color.
Did I mention Its GREAT for YOU and OUR Environment?
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If we dont have it. We'll Get It.
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