St. Anne's Square, Belfast

[Paul Clerkin]

Creating a new civic space, sadly going down an unfortunate architectural route -

[Starch]

I'm finding it difficult to orientate myself from those plans, the OMAC arts centre looks a bit promising, the rest is twee crap.....I guess they're trying to insert some historical style architecture (blah) because so much was bombed?

[aj]

I'm finding it difficult to orientate myself from those plans, the OMAC arts centre looks a bit promising, the rest is twee crap.....I guess they're trying to insert some historical style architecture (blah) because so much was bombed?

much of High Street and the area around St Annes was effectively flattened by the Luftwaffe. A lot of the building werent actaully rebuilt post war and what was was decidely shoddy

[johnglas]

And it is the Prod cathedral, so it has to have a grand setting; who's the statue of? The Big Man or some other Bold Orange Hero (cf Stormont)?

[Paul Clerkin]

Probably an Anthony Gormley - he's the new Calatrava

[Starch]

....just a small little thumbnail of the front entrance to Hackett and Hall's new arts centre....

http://www.thomasdevlin.com/blog/uploads/web_Slide23.serendipityThumb.jpg

man it's hard to find information on these projects!


and to balance it out....here's some muck
http://www.laganside.com/siteFiles/resources/St%20Annes%20Square%20Piazza.jpg

[LOB]

Great opportunity, poorly executed.
http://www.wdr-rt-taggart.com/projects_info.php?building_id=17&image_id=55&cat_id=9

[gunter]

This may be the wrong thread, but this caught my eye when I was up north on the weekend and it's beside St Anne's Cathedral so that's got to be close enough.



This strikes me as a decent civic building and a nice piece of contemporary university architecture. Maybe the (Goldsmith Hall type) hermetically sealed glass bridge is a bit unecessary, but otherwise it's clean and reasonably crisp.

I thought the University of Ulster was in Colraine.

I agree with other commentators, the good bits of Belfast are very good, but the bad bits, . . . my god!

[Starch]

that's the art school of the university of Ulster.....also it's the home of the new school of architecture which started a couple of years ago....

[Maxwiggan]

The university of ulster is spread over four Campus sites in Derry, York st Belfast, Jordanstown and Colraine. The building pictured above is actualy a Cosmetic refit of the old 60s internationalist building.

[Paul Clerkin]

I thought the old school of art was taller no?

[Maxwiggan]

nope i watched them remove the old cladding and replace it with the stone and glass, the interoir was gutted while the building was still in use. The glass bridge existed before the cosmetic refit

[Maxwiggan]

anybody got a photo pre facelift?

[Paul Clerkin]

must have just seemed taller to me when I did my interview there 20 odd years ago...

it's easy to impress hicks from the country

[Maxwiggan]

I came up from the sticks in 1997 but never even got to the interview I met a girl and drank cans in the botanic gardens thats why I ended up ay NCAD, the choices one makes

[Paul Clerkin]

The shortlist has been announced for the Carbuncle Cup, BD’s award for the ugliest building in the UK completed in the last 12 months. Despite a flurry of nominations for buildings in Ireland, only one made the final cut. Designed by WDR & RT Taggart in Belfast, St Anne’s Square was called a “neo-classical, pastiche mess” by one contributor. The £100m leisure, commercial and residential development is in the city’s Cathedral Quarter in a major site of regeneration in Belfast.

[wearnicehats]

The shortlist has been announced for the Carbuncle Cup, BD’s award for the ugliest building in the UK completed in the last 12 months. Despite a flurry of nominations for buildings in Ireland, only one made the final cut. Designed by WDR & RT Taggart in Belfast, St Anne’s Square was called a “neo-classical, pastiche mess” by one contributor. The £100m leisure, commercial and residential development is in the city’s Cathedral Quarter in a major site of regeneration in Belfast.

it's not as if they didn't know what they would get

http://www.wdr-rt-taggart.com/HTML/Architecture/Archi.html

consistently the worst design firm in NI, if not the UK, if not the cosmos

[Paul Clerkin]

but but


The name WDR & RT Taggart is synonymous with design quality in architecture, underpinned by commercial understanding and cultural sensitivity.

Our approach is distinctive in providing Clients with choice of style, consistently producing bespoke and uplifting designs.

Central to all of our projects are functionality, beauty and sustainability.

[Starch]

poor Hackett Hall McKnight's Metropolitan Arts Centre stuck in the middle of THAT

http://www.buildingthemac.com/
http://www.hhmck.com/

[wearnicehats]

but but


The name WDR & RT Taggart is synonymous with design quality in architecture, underpinned by commercial understanding and cultural sensitivity.

Our approach is distinctive in providing Clients with choice of style, consistently producing bespoke and uplifting designs.

Central to all of our projects are functionality, beauty and sustainability.

and we're really, really cheap. no, really cheap. did we mention we're cheap?