Use
Weathering steel is popularly used in outdoor sculptures, such as in the large Chicago Picasso sculpture, and as exterior facades, for its rustic antique appearance. Examples include The Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY, The Angel of the North, Gateshead, UK and the Humanities and Arts complex at Leeds Metropolitan University - Broadcasting Place - Leeds, UK
It has also been used in bridge and other large structural applications such as the New River Gorge Bridge, the newer span of the Newburgh–Beacon Bridge, and the creation of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) and Mona.
It is very widely used in marine transportation, in the construction of Intermodal containers as well as visible sheet piling along recently widened sections of London's M25 motorway.
The first use of COR-TEN for architectural applications was the John Deere World Headquarters in Moline, Illinois. The building was designed by architect Eero Saarinen, and completed in 1964. In 1977, Robert Indiana created a Hebrew version of the Love sculpture using the four-letter word ahava (אהבה, "love" in Hebrew) made from COR-TEN for the Israel Museum Art Garden in Jerusalem, Israel.
COR-TEN was used in 1971 for an order of electric railcars built by the St. Louis Car Company for Illinois Central Railroad. The use of COR-TEN was seen as a cost-cutting move in comparison with the contemporary railcar standard of stainless steel. A subsequent order in 1979 was built to similar specs, including COR-TEN bodies, by Bombardier. The cars were painted, a standard practice for COR-TEN railcars. However, the durability of COR-TEN did not live up to expectations, with rust holes appearing in the railcars. Ironically, painting may have contributed to the problem, as painted weathering steel is no more corrosion-resistant than conventional steel, because the protective patina will not form in time to prevent corrosion over a localized area of attack such as a small paint failure. Most of these railcars still operate out of Chicago.
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