1912 – Lutyens’ Liffey Bridge Gallery Proposal, Dublin

Intended to house the collection of Sir Hugh Lane, and to replace the Wellington Bridge (Ha’penny Bridge) Lutyens’ design was rejected by the city corporation. Lane was keen to use Lutyens while the city and the RIAI were pushing for an architectural competition with Lutyens as assessor. Irish architectural journals were against the idea of Lutyens, there had been barbed comments about English architects working in Dublin for several years.

“Mr. Lutyens is one of the ablest of English designers of the younger school. He is notably connected and the fashionable architect of the moment amongst the English aristocracy. He has lately been appointed architect in connection with the new art gallery in Johannesburg, but hitherto he has chiefly excelled in domestic work. But is it not rather going too far to suggest that there is in all Ireland no architect fit to design a creditable monumental building of classic type in this city of Gandon’s Custom House and of the Irish Renaissance.”
The Irish Builder, April 13 1913

Another design by Lutyens proposed siting the gallery in St. Stephen’s Green – this was also rejected by the city. Some of the articles against the bridge were borderline xenophobic, calling Lutyens South African or Dutch, especially in The Irish Architect, a magazine run by future Dublin City Architect Horace T. O’Rourke. They even produced their own version of a bridge gallery, a design that would have left most of the gallery area under water during seasonal high tides. The architect William A. Scott, Professor of Architecture at UCD, said in his inaugural speech as President of the AAI in 1813, that while he was a great admirer of Lutyens, and he was sure “any building he would have put up would be delightful” but that the bridge would obstruct the view.

“The new art gallery is to be in the form of a bridge spanning the famous Liffey, to take the place of a hideous iron bridge covered with advertisements that is at present one of the eyesores of Dublin. Those who know the charm of the Ponte Vecchio at Florence might think that the project would be accepted with alacrity.

But those that know Dublin, as I do, will understand that there are many clashing forces in that historic city, and that the Dubliner, like the rest of his race, is a critic first of all. Some there are who will say that the bridge will spoil the Liffey, but a look at our illustrations – Mr. Lutyens’s designs – will answer that criticism. Others say that Mt. Lutyens is not an Irishman, and an Irish architect must be employed in these days of Celtic renaissance. But the Dubliner forgets that in accepting the masterpieces of art by Frenchmen, Englishmen, Americans, and other nationalities that are in Sir Hugh Lane’s collection has already allowed a breath of happy inconsistency, and the question of the architect is on all fours with the artists. Besides, Mr. Lutyens, an Englishman, born in London of Dutch origin, had an Irish mother, and his father worked for years as an artist in Dublin. Dublin has not had a great building for a hundred years. Here is a golden opportunity on the threshold of a new era.”
The Sphere, September 6 1913.

With Lane’s death on the Lusitania, the schemes died. Eventually Charlemont House on Parnell Square was converted into the Municipal Gallery.