Convention centre
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Viva Laaaas Vegaaaasssss!
What is that THING to the right of the picture? Contextual architecture or what? Yeehaarrrr!!!!
oh, really? i suppose it’s all o.k. then.
What posessed the developers of this project to go for Kevin Roche as architect. His work down the years has been at best patchy and his large scale work of the 80’s and 90’s has been disgustingly commercial, often lapsing into totally ridiculous po-mo pastiche. The perspective view is bad enough but the elevation is enough to make me sick. The nescessary density should be housed in elegant, extremely tall towers, designed to the highest standard, leaving the maximum public space at the riverside. Such a scheme would be a spectacular asset to the city, not a horrendous blot on the landscape as the current prospect of stumpy, lumpen slabs would certainly be. And the convention centre itself… One jazzy gimmick, ie the tilted glass drum, does not lead to a successful building. The other elevations are unspeakably dull. Something has to be done to stop this entire monstrosity from being built.
Any Ideas as to who should be asked to design this scheme?? I wonder how some of our own, like O’Donnell-Twomey or Shay Cleary would handle such a scale of building. I think even Scott Tallon Walker would do a better job than what is being proposed.
[This message has been edited by BTH (edited 12 March 1999).]
There was an interesting article about the development today’s Irish Times by Paul Keogh, which raised a few very pertinent issues until it rather unfortunately descended into yet another plug for the architects comprising Group 91.
That aside, it is true that the issue of the longer-term development of the area looks like it’s being overlooked, with short term profit motives dictating how the area is to be developed.
If built, the most positive thing that could be said about the architectural language of this development is that it would perfectly reflect the values of the society which produced it.
Yeah, i saw the article. I didn’t think there was anything new in it – it contained all the usual posturing that this ‘select’ group of architects have been peddling for years.
As to the suggestion that STW be involved, I’m glad BTH said ‘even Scott Tallon Walker would do a better job than what is being proposed’… the thoughs of STW getting another chance to roll out the same design in another city venur is scary – look at the Smurfit Building at Lincoln Place, Wood Quay, the Engineering Building in UCD – the same bland motifs and use of materials. Granted the inside of the Wood Quay building is quite impressive but the overwhelming sense is one of banality and safety in design.
i like the plan. i just think spencer dock is the wrong place. it should be further away from the city center, but more easily connected transit wise.
Y’know the bit on the right of the the front elevation looks a lot like that Ulster Bank heap by the City Arts Centre.
J
Rumour has it Kevin Roche will be on The Late Late Show this Friday.
This could be interesting… is it going to be a fawning interview or is he being set up with a hostile panel?
Ah yes. The desperate deployment of a Platonic form – here the cylinder – in an attempt to achieve the big urban gesture. I.M. Pei is rather better at this sort of thing.
Actually the tilted glass cylinder engaged with an orthogonal form is no bad idea, and I’m not aware of such an example anywhere else (please enlighten me, everyone). Just a bit of a shame that – to go by the published images – the cylinder is the only possibly good thing about an otherwise largely illiterate and over-scaled building.
Would that tilted glass drum be facing due south, by the way? If so, I suspect they will either have to lose that transparency, or roast.
As far as I know, the only building that has had its design finalised is the Conference Centre, the other buildings have not yet been looked at in any depth save height and space. I am hoping for something a lot more interesting than the rubbish in the above picture.
[This message has been edited by Peter FitzPatrick (edited 22 February 2000).]
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