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We all know that buildings don't always turn out like the renderings. Last-minute changes and real-life materials can all cause discrepancies between the vision and reality of a project. In our Flash Forward Friday feature, we take a look at how different projects stack up.
It's pretty difficult to imagine the Calgary skyline without The Bow. The 236-metre skyscraper was the tallest building from its completion in 2012 until the development of Brookfield Place. Its crescent shape, sparkling glass, and triangular diagrid — the first of its kind in North America — evoke the modernity and ingenuity that international architects like Foster + Partners employ around the world. But it took some trial and error to get to the gleaming tower of glass we see today. Designed in collaboration with Zeidler Partnership Architects for Matthews Southwest, the building went through some major revisions in response to economic realities, community concerns, and creative input.
Natural gas producer Encana Corporation announced plans for a new highrise in 2006, with preliminary designs showing a number of distinct design options. The development's intense public exposure led to unbridled excitement, which in turn produced conflicting sources and unconfirmed reports about varying schemes. Multiple publications would suggest visions that included more than one tower spanning two blocks or a single tower that would become the tallest in Canada. The official word would come later, describing a tower that would climb 58 storeys and 247 metres.
The official design was unveiled on October 12, 2006. Initially, the development included a tower that looks largely the same as the finished product, save for a pronged rooftop that was later abandoned. The plan housed three skygardens that divided the building into unique zones. The model also showed pockets of gardens and dense foliage dotting the verticality of the building. And it called for an adjacent podium building between 6th and 7th Avenues at the old site of the demolished York Hotel. A model of the development showed the two connected by a sweeping and fluid canopy that hovers over the roadway. Later renderings would put more focus on the mid-rise companion project, demonstrating how the York Hotel would be rebuilt and incorporated into the glassy extension.
The tower's height was scaled back to 236 metres and the mid-rise component was delayed in the face of the credit crunch. The Bow South Block Plaza, meant to be a temporary public space reserving the property for future development, has occupied the site since 2015. An already-built parking garage is located underneath.
While plans for the remaining build-out are mostly up in the air, The Bow itself faithfully executed the vision established by Foster + Partners. Its six-level skygardens are hidden behind mostly opaque glazing, making it difficult to observe its verdant green spaces from the outside. But the building's rich materiality met the expectations spurred by the renderings released a decade ago, and The Bow almost immediately became the favourite Canadian skyscraper of many like-minded architecture enthusiasts and urbanists.
We will return in the near future with another comparison!
