The Globe and Mail

'There is," says Gary McCluskie, "no next week." McCluskie, the lead architect for the Canadian Opera Company's new opera house in downtown Toronto, is talking about the make-or-break deadline for finalizing the architectural drawings. That day is April 30. That's when every cubic inch of the opera house must be described, in every dimension, from every perspective, down to the last smoke detector and bolt on the glass staircase in the lobby. That's the day when 35 contracts will be let out for tender, and a couple of hundred hard-eyed men who spend their lives installing zinc siding, pre-pressed plaster panels, exotic brickwork, gigantic furnace flues and commercial wood floors will receive the drawings on which they will base their quotes.