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[Photo by KPA]
I returned twice to view (and take photos) of the ceiling in the building on 25 King Street West. I think, besides the overwhelming beauty of the ceiling, what attracted me to it was that it mimics the colors of my own blog: pale turquoise with light yellow and gold, and a background that suggests a glow of light.
I got the colors (and the idea of light) from a photograph of the sky with clouds, which I transformed into my masthead. The "light" in yellow and gold followed naturally.
The pale blue within the octagons look like views into the sky, and the gold could be reflections from the sun.
Besides colors, I try to fill my blog with interesting patterns (stories), like the beautiful octagonal shapes that bring this ceiling to life.
So there it is, the roundabout way of creating something.
It's good to know that such places still exist that sharpen our senses, in our cities of careless structures and misshapen forms.
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The Heritage Plaque on the building says:
The Canadian Bank of Commerce Building
1929-1931
Upon completion, this 34-storey skyscraper was the tallest building in the British Empire and was praised as the "greatest addition to Toronto's increasing, Manhattan-like skyline." It was designed for The Canadian Bank of Commerce jointly by the Toronto firm Darling and Pearson, and by York & Sawyer, the foremost New York City bank architects of the era. Rising in tiers, the building features richly carved Romanesque Revival detailing and a vaulted Main Banking Hall said to be modelled after Rome's Baths of Caracalla. A popular outdoor observation gallery on the 32nd floor - guarded by great carved heads with flowing beards - gave the public unobstructed city views until even taller office towers were built in the 1960s. After The Commerce merged with the Imperial Bank of Canada in 1961, the building became the head office of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, 1991
Heritage Toronto 2006