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Rain fell for much of this past week. Yet at a press conference to unveil a stunning star sapphire that will be displayed to herald the new Teck Cominco geology galleries, Royal Ontario Museum CEO William Thorsell was smiling.

He wasn't supposed to be: Rain derails the hour-by-hour work schedule to complete the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, designed by Daniel Libeskind. Rain idles the 43 ironworkers still installing the Crystal's exterior cladding. Rain costs money.

Perhaps Thorsell was buoyed by thoughts of the newly opened Libeskind-designed Denver Museum of Art, now fenced off so that workers can repair its dripping roof. Said Thorsell: “Last night, Toronto went through an absolute car wash of a downpour – and no leaks.”

A master of sangfroid, this man. As of mid-May, it is still touch and go as to whether Toronto's own Libeskind will be ready. By declaring that the June opening will be “architectural” (i.e. the new building will be mostly empty), Thorsell turned the potential humiliation of a job that is a year and a half behind its original schedule (and $50-million in the red) into a grand opportunity for the public to inspect an icon in progress. A shipment of 19 Spirit House chairs — cubist objects of 14-gauge stainless steel, Libeskind-designed and made by Toronto furniture-maker Klaus Nienkämper — will add grace notes to the Crystal's mostly empty spaces.

But stunning chairs and architecture won't deter the City of Toronto's fire, electrical and structural inspectors, who must decide whether to issue the Crystal its pass papers. “No permit is ever cleared at time of occupancy,” says Kim Dobson, a district chief at Toronto Fire Services. “Standpipe systems for fire hoses, sprinkler and smoke-control systems – if areas of a building aren't secure, they have to be sealed from the general public.”

Two weeks ago, mechanical inspectors took issue with one of the new elevators, costing precious days of delay. Four of the six elevators are now working, but not the freight elevator, which has complicated the installation of the inaugural exhibition, Hiroshi Sugimoto: History of History, at the Institute of Contemporary Culture in its new home atop the Crystal.

To cope with the elevator issue, Thorsell said, ROM staff members were using the biggest passenger elevator, the one designed to take an entire school class, to haul “stuff.” Said Doug Ferris of Fujitec Elevator, “We're definitely working overtime on this one.”

If there are more problems, what will that mean? Havoc for the ROM's sold-out gala Friday, June 1, and for the next day, when organizers of the Luminato festival anticipate that the new ROM Plaza will be the site of a free outdoor evening concert, culminating with Governor-General Michaëlle Jean officially “lighting the Crystal” – illuminating the festival and the ROM in one dramatic moment.

There's still time for one last spanner in the works. The Crystal has had plenty, right from the start.

In the three years that lapsed between the ROM project being priced and going to tender, steel prices nearly doubled, according to John Martin, project director of Vanbots Construction, the main construction company involved. But that didn't affect Toronto's other “cultural build” projects, such as the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts or the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, as much as it did the ROM.

The real problem was the complexity of Libeskind's design. Because it had almost no 90-degree angles, the structural-steel contractors, Walters Inc. of Hamilton, had to invent new systems. As they fell behind schedule, each delay affected the next stage.

The Crystal's steep angles threatened to turn into an avalanche machine overhanging Bloor Street. Project architect Thore Garbers, from Libeskind's Berlin studio, saved the day by inventing a two-layer cladding system to prevent snow from forming heavy, potentially dangerous loads, instead dispersing it onto the warmer layer beneath, where it would melt and flow into hidden gutters.

But his intricate cladding design created more delays. Last August, after a flurry of lawyers' letters underlining contractual obligations having to do with completion dates, the contractor, Josef Gartner & Co., agreed to make good the cost (hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more) of finishing the job.

The exterior should be done this coming week, says Gartner superintendent Paul Ranieri. “We have no contingency plan. We just have to be out of there.”

What Toronto will make of its new Libeskind is a matter of hot debate. But there's no doubt that his design has changed the way its citizens think about streetscapes. Recently two 12-year-olds were overheard as they glanced up at the almost-complete Crystal. Remarked one: “They used to line up all the windows in a row.” Noting a nearby building with just such windows, the other replied, “Lines are for losers.”