Painted Light
Gold
This is one of my favourite towers in the Toronto skyline. The Royal Bank Plaza is composed of two triangular towers (one 41-stories, the other 26-stories) that help take advantage of the sun's low angle at this northern latitude and bounce the light around at unusual angles. Incidentally, the sun is the reason there is gold on this building in the first place.
The skyscraper has 14,000 windows and because of that, incredibly high heating and cooling bills. Having 2,500 ounces of 24-carat gold baked into the glass helps insulate the building and makes up for the installation cost, though the bank got the original gold for less than CAN$100.00 an ounce.
No one has ever stolen one of the windows even though each contains about CAN$70.00 worth of gold. That is because the process that puts the gold into the glass makes it worthless at the same time. It is not possible to separate one material from the other.
The Royal Bank claims there is more glass in this skyscraper than any other in the world. There is enough gold on the surface of the building to mint 50,000 gold coins!!!
Gold
This is one of my favourite towers in the Toronto skyline. The Royal Bank Plaza is composed of two triangular towers (one 41-stories, the other 26-stories) that help take advantage of the sun's low angle at this northern latitude and bounce the light around at unusual angles. Incidentally, the sun is the reason there is gold on this building in the first place.
The skyscraper has 14,000 windows and because of that, incredibly high heating and cooling bills. Having 2,500 ounces of 24-carat gold baked into the glass helps insulate the building and makes up for the installation cost, though the bank got the original gold for less than CAN$100.00 an ounce.
No one has ever stolen one of the windows even though each contains about CAN$70.00 worth of gold. That is because the process that puts the gold into the glass makes it worthless at the same time. It is not possible to separate one material from the other.
The Royal Bank claims there is more glass in this skyscraper than any other in the world. There is enough gold on the surface of the building to mint 50,000 gold coins!!!