Shopfront race to the bottom

[StephenC]

Batchelor's Walk









I dunno...maybe its just me! Maybe it looks great..vibrant, dynamic, charming, classy. Maybe I shouldn't be wearing so much black.

[OisinT]

The green is hideous but I actually don't mind the purple. If they don't do upkeep on it (which they probably wont) it's going to look dismal in a few years.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Considering where it's located, that entire block represents the most appalling stretch of buildings in Dublin. Is there not some way they can force the removal of that advertising? If you did that and painted those ugly building it would go some way towards making that area of Dublin seem less grotty. I think somebody in the City Council needs to stand on O'Connell Bridge and ask themselves what could be done to make this worthy of the dead centre of a capital city. Everywhere you look is grottiness and decay.

[StephenC]

Dublin's latest shop craze appears to be Tourist Information Offices. Apart from the official offices on St Andrews Street and Upper O'Connell Street there are now unofficial offices at the corner with Henry Street (former JWT shop), Batchelors Walk (the big lurid green building) and no less than 2 side by side at College Green/Lwr Grafton Street.

[Punchbowl]

Are they officialy sanctioned? I see Dublin Bus selling tours in them anyway

[Morlan]

Is this still here? (Saint Andrew's St.)

[Cathal Dunne]

One of the central reasons for this lurid profusion of tackiness is the failure of DCC to create a code of practice for street signage and shop frontage and enforce it with hefty fines for offenders and writs to have offensive and gaudy signage removed within a month. Given the shortage of funds in the DCC this strategy would reap a significant short-term windfall for the DCC which could then be used to fix the many pot-holes, worn road markings and eroded ramps in the city which are a menace to motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. The roadworks would also create a good few jobs too.

[davidarthurs]

I was cycling a long ring route from Dorset street to Drumcondra taking photos recently - and it is interesting the way the main area of eyesore today in Dublin do center around the grouping of shopfronts - typically the newsagent, fast food joint, cleaners etc., and mainly because of the incredibly tacky generic signage, and now the proliferation of illegal banners as well, and mainly it has to be said by the brand named stores, as opposed to shops with character - like say Frank's off Dorset street and a few others.



I say this in contrast with the attitude of earlier generations when one was attracted to the shops, not repelled by them, and the signage was carefully considered to the environment, as opposed to being a generic garish color for wherever - the priority being maintaining the brand. Also the designers of these shopfronts it should be noted seem to follow no particular tradition of shopfront design, or either care or know about what it is they are designing. It begs the questions - where are all the shopfront designers? Did they all just die out? why? surely there was always a demand for decent shopfronts. And where exactly are they all coming from now. Educate the shopfront designers and solve the problem?

[PVC King]

Shocking photo. I'd have that shop re-rated by the VO to take account of the value of the outdoor advertising.....

[Paul cuddy]

flippen heck, I am speechless

[Punchbowl]

I like Franks. It's a very urban decay sort of shop front, and (literally) it brings colour. Certainly perfer it to most of the screen-printed signs around town currently.

[gunter]

It does have some almost souk qualities and it is an antidote of sorts to the bland corporate sameness of SPAR et al.
Great photograph.

[StephenC]

Fast food is quickly becoming the only show in town for many streets...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0810/nandos.html

That and Tourist Offices (as mentioned before)

[StephenC]

At last someone is feeling the heat

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 59665.html

What the paper doesn't say is that all of these new Tourist Offices are without planning permission. At least for their shopfronts. All 5 from O'Connell Street to Grafton Street are within ACAs and yet not one applied for permission to replace their frontage or to add their clutter of signs, banners and stickers. In some cases the units are within protected structures...again a requirement to gain planning permission.

Im not exercised enough to trawl through the ACA policies. Cant imagine they would be of help anyhow.

[lostexpectation]

Winner Irish Times of postcard of modern Ireland competition


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/fea ... 42283.html

so do we like

[StephenC]

I think it says it all...brilliant

[exene1]

Fast food is quickly becoming the only show in town for many streets...

And gaming / amusement arcades.

The old Smallmans plumbing store down the lane Bachelors Way has an application for an amusement centre - reference 2579/11 - as does no. 154 Capel Street, 3093/11.

DCC refused another one at 108 Parnell Street after numerous local objections to it - 2794/11

[StephenC]

...although it opened anyhow

[thebig C]

I don't know if anybody has noticed, but, somebody has "refurbished" on of the Victorian/Edwardian buildings on Benburb St by painting the brickwork on the ground floor a lurid police siren blue!

[StephenC]

"Class" abounds in Dublin's Fair City

[exene1]

It's a pity Margaret Heffernan and Starbucks couldn't get their shit together when Starbucks wanted to open a cafe in the unit at the corner of South Great George's Street and Stephen Street. The building is not contributing anything to the street activity-wise and Starbucks would have done a good job on it. Global chain issues aside Starbucks are a star when it comes to design, colour and signage .... not like the pile of shite we routinely get for "design" in Dublin city centre @_@

MARGARET LEAVES STARBUCKS STEAMING

There is always room for one more coffee shop in the busy South Great George's Street area which now has no end of eateries and footfall as a result.

But Starbucks has found it impossible to crack, after dealings with the formidable Dunnes Stores boss Margaret Heffernan came to naught. Doctor Heffernan couldn't wait to sign over one of the five shops under her new HQ to the American coffee giant, and even schlepped across to the US to admire their operation. The deal was moving along nicely and the contract was with the lawyers, but lo and behold Margaret changed her mind when Starbucks said they wanted to take an upper floor as well as the small shopfront at street ....

© Irish Times, August 8, 2008

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/pro ... 41613.html

[exene1]

Lol Dublin. We want Foam cafe but we get Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Planning application for new KFC in the old McBirney's department store on Aston Quay ..... right beside the biggest burger slum in the nation. The Council refused it in May. They appealed it but it has now been refused on appeal also - http://pleanala.ie/casenum/239069.html








And slap a shutter casing across rare original Wide Street Commisioners shopfront arches at protected structure 25 Eden Quay, why not. DCC planning enforcement refused to act on a complaint on this some time ago for insufficient evidence that the shutter hadn't been there longer than 7 years. Doesn't matter. It's horrible around there anyway.

[exene1]

The city is being ruined by (a) people with no colour taste or coordination and (b) people making unauthorised alterations to buildings.




Here is Frank Ryan pub, Queen Street, a protected structure. It could be a classic Dublin pubfront, up there with the Stag's Head, Cassidy's etc. It has all the ingredients - good quality carved timber pubfront, historic brick upper elevation with pretty quoins & parapet - but it's been in the shits for years with a taseless colour scheme, clutter all over the place, painted brickwork and replacement windows.






And now, the pubfront has just incurred another tasteless paint job in purple & lilac which clashes violently with the green above.






Worse is unauthorised alterations to the protected pubfront: In the original on the left, the piers seamlessly support the consoles at each end of the fascia and thus visually hold the whole elevation over the shopfront. The consoles have just been replaced with projecting boxes (right) inspired by those godawful 'reproduction traditional' shopfronts all over the country, and the visual logic is lost.

GET SOME COLOUR ADVICE FRANK RYAN AND GET CONSERVATION ADVICE BEFORE CHANGING PARTS ON A HISTORIC PUBFRONT (AND APPLY FOR PERMISSION).

[LOB]

exene1, Frank Ryan has not owned that Pub in about 10 years.
It's only after he sold it that the horrific paint job on the Facade appeared.

[exene1]

Hi, yeah it's addressing "Frank Ryan" as in Frank Ryan pub, not a Frank Ryan individual. I understand the confusion though.