CN

Bryan Partington

My home town is littered with the detritus of the sporadic booms and busts it encountered in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The CN office tower in Edmonton presides over an abandoned rail yard that's now being converted into yet another one of the many condo developments that are cropping up around the city in its most recent boom.

When I was growing up, I'd visit my father's downtown office and look down upon this building and the old city hall [a similarly modern building, since demolished].

At that time, the tower was falling apart. Once western canada's tallest building, its white marble facade was falling apart. The building had seen better days, and in the nineties it underwent a revitalization, replacing the outer siding with an acrylic substitute.

While once I viewed the building as a dingy cast off from an earlier era, I think it is one of my favourite buildings in Edmonton today.

Unlike the modern condominiums poised to surround it, the Edmonton CN Tower represents a reclaimed architectural heritage.

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