monument gets the go ahead!
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for those of you that don’t know yet, the minister finally gave the go ahead for the spike last night (no height restrictions).. no idea what took him so long but i think most people who post on this site will be happy with the decision, its about bloody time!!
I agree with Marx that it might be better if the monument was errected after the rest of the work was done on the street, but realistically that will could take up to 5 years or more and having talked about the thing so much, i definitely don’t want to wait that long. A lot of people still have to be won over but i think most will be impressed when they see the finished product (once it matches up to its description). If the Herald is right it will be errected by the summer but guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
hope everyone had a good Christmas and Happy New Year!
[This message has been edited by Peter FitzPatrick (edited 28 December 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Peter FitzPatrick (edited 28 December 2000).]
Hurrah! for the Monument of Light…….but is’nt it dissappoining to see though that 3/4 of the general public disapproved of it Was it well founded constuctive criticism or sheer bloody ignorance on their behalf.An Taisce objected to it’s height saying that it could be seen from miles around ….but is’nt that the purpose of the thing. No thanks either to the artistic genius of M.O’Nuaillain whose futile objection merely held up the project. {His concept for the scheme remember, was a revolving observation dish on top of a column…..more suitable for 50’s SC-Fi B movies and ‘The Plan Nine from Outer Space’….that of course is my artistic intepretation of his proposed failed piece).
One must be prepared too for the risk of the completed ‘Monument of Light’ being subjected to vandalism by the uneducated and unenlightened. The movie ‘2001 A Space Odessey’ springs to mind….you know the scene of when the half man/half ape nervously touches the strange alien obelisk ………could easily be a common scene on O’Connell Street next year.(‘2001 a Space Oddity’ morelike.)
Ah well I say it will all look magnificent when finished ….the least we could do is give it a chance. If not, no doubt it will meet the same fate as the Liffey timepiece.
This is a definite step forward for the city, we need more bravery like this and less complaining from the populace who think that complaining is a form of civic pride.
Fair play to the minister, and it’s not often we can say that.
Unfortunately the vast majority of Irish people are aesthetic illiterates, we can expect plenty more objections to plans to improve Dublin in future. Imagine if Liebeskind tried building the Jewish museum in Dublin.I think the Irish as a people are generally visually illiterate – ours in a spoken and written culture
If your literacy skills are anything to go on then maybe we should declare a state of emergency regarding our written culture.
But seriously am I the only one who is tired of this same old topic that we, the Irish are ‘visually illiterate’?
Such pessimism will get us nowhere- accept it, things HAVE changed.Does anybody else agree that MICHEÃL Ó NUALLÃIN is a nut case who the Irish Times devotes far too much column inches to. His rantings become more and more deluded each time they publish his letters. Perhaps this is the case because he is Flann O’Briens brother and all that. But more and more it sounds like sour grapes from someone whos entry (which seemed to look forward to the 1950s) to the competition was not selected.
A touch of the Al Gore’s here.
Rory W
i m not as optimistic as the previous opinions.Although I am not completely against the idea I do feel that it could be yet another blunder for Dublins major art projects(the millenium time-piece anyone?)It sunk after only a few months.
hopefully it won t & all i can add is good luck!
The ‘Millenium Timepiece’ was’nt a bad concept, maybe if it was executed better….and the bigger the better for all to see.
I remember the Liffey timepiece because at the time it struck me as the first sizeable thing to be built which wasn’t entirely utilitarian – Dublin was a staggeringly mean and begrudging place until quite recently, and uplifting public works were hard to find – so I liked it a lot
In all the discussion about the Spire I’ve not seen much about its technology. Note that its architect, Ian Ritchie, has previously designed a series of advanced pylons for Electricite de France which adopt this slender tubular format rather than the more familiar latticework structure.
So far as I can tell, the Spire is a clever example of technology transfer, just as the original inter-war pylon designs borrowed from earlier bridge-building techniques. As, of course, did Eiffel’s tower in Paris…
I think it will be great, by the way.
I read that this man O’Nuallain is now taking his case against the Spire to Europe, on the grounds that Dublin Corp’s environmental impact assessement was flawed and that the glass tip of the spire could be shattered by lightning, fall and kill millions.
Could someone please tell me who O’Nuallain is, exactly, apart from a nutcase?
hugh, he’s the brother of the late Birna O’Nolan, aka Flann O’Brian aka Myles na gCopoleen etc…..
his own entry was a top heavy flying saucer on a big wide column as i remember…
he’s a basket case, but there’s a far righ religious group here who believe the spike will be top heavy (figure that one out) and want a 300 foot statue of the virgin mary instead.
[This message has been edited by Paul Clerkin (edited 22 January 2001).]
Am I the only one who is really dissapointed at the go ahead of the millennium spike? I personally feel all the rants about it being wonderful technology transfer and about time is crazy. To me it seems unadventurous, uninspiring and a complete waste of money. To mark the millennium, the corporation would be so better suited investing their money into something that might actually make a difference (however small) to everyday life. I understand that the money was to be used for Dublin but what if the money had been divided between all counties, given out as a competition to schools to design a piece of art for their county, the making of which would be funded. This would allow people to feel included, like they where contributing to celebrating the millennium.
I know this has been gone over many times, but the more I hear of it, the more annoyed I get.
Please I don’t wish to sound bad but that sounds like the ‘Legion of Mary’ philosophy. I mean this ‘do good’……’the money would have been better spent’ blah, blah, blah stuff is timeworn in this country. Let’s get our capital city in order aswell and spend a few bob on it’s appearance……the city is for all the people and it will be of benefit in the future. There is a part of the Irish psyche which displays an oddity of ‘ah we don’t want that …sure we don’t need that…… and it’s to our detriment. Maybe it’s all those years of repression and deprivation that has detrimentally scarred us as a society.
There will always be charities for the unfortunate of society and as Mr. Christ said himself the poor and unfortunate will always be with us.yeah lets give everyone another candle.
Why shouldn’t Dublin get this monument? And the people were welcome to submit a design – as the bitterness of Micheal O’Nullain (non-architect) shows. I for one am sick of the lets give a bit to everyone type mentality, lets spend it on the poor, lets build a new cat and dog home. What the hell is wrong with spending money on improving the atmosphere & environment of O’Connell street.
I am delighted with the amount of people who have been saying how pleasant it is to walk down the boardwalk (the other project for Dublin).
Sick of the Moaning Minnies!!!! I am delighted the Monument of light is going ahead. An I am sure that when it is built the reaction will be very positive. Can somebody tell we why this is a waste of money? Is all art a waste of money.
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