1955 – VW Assembly Plant, Naas Road, Dublin

In June 1950, Stephen O’Flaherty signed a deal that secured the rights to the Volkswagen franchise in Ireland as Motor Distributers Ireland. Ireland’s place in Volkswagen history was firmly established in 1950 when the first Volkswagen ever built outside Germany was assembled on Shelbourne Road in Ballsbridge. Throughout the fifties demand rose steadily and the business quickly outgrew the Shelbourne Road facility. In 1955 assembly was transferred to this new factory on the Naas Road, Dublin 12.

The building had been commissioned by tailoring company Montague Burton, and designed by their inhouse architect Nathaniel Martin, but placed on the market for sale, after the death of Montague Burton in 1952, without ever being used. Changes to the building were carried out by Beckett & Harrington. Vehicle assembly continued here until the mid-1980s.

It is a massive space, a thirty-nine-bay double-height factory, with an iconic central square-plan tower with stepped corners flanked by projecting five-bay blocks with curved corners, in turn flanked by fourteen-bay blocks. Behind the adminsitration block is a large saw-toothed assembly plant.Externally finished in red brick with cream-coloured ceramic details including string courses and copings. The tower brings a strong vertical contrast to the building’s long, horizontal form. Now topped with a Mercedes three-pointed star.