Miscellaneous Pics

Girl, that hotel or whatever it is looks like shite. Jurys hotels generally look like shite, have you seen the Jurys hotel in Ballsbridge, it looks even worse at the front than that one does from the back.

So what’s your problem with the Spike ? It’s the coolest thing in the whole town, and don’t start giving out about those marks on the base, they look good.

Next time send a GOOD example and a bad example and keep things in proportion.

The Montrose is interesting in that it keeps on being subjected to ‘face-lifts’. This latest incarnation is about 7 or 8 years old now (not sure exactly, but I remember it being done), and is beginning to look dated. This is why there is such a contrast between the front and the back of the building.

BG,

a useful observation about the treatment of hotels, and building skins in general from a point of view…. I will look forward to these observations of yours… I too have studied the Stillorgan road lately as I commute that way now.

I don’t know it myself… but could someone please inform me, as to what traditionally have been the ‘landmarks’ along the whole length of Stillorgan road… i.e. How do people normally distinguish, at what point of the whole length of the thing they are refering to?

Does the Montrose tower, TV transmission, steel, web-y thing gets cited alot as a landmark? I dunno this road at all, just wondering what to people use to orient themselves out around there?

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Wow you’re genuinely inquisitive….
Coming from Bray …cornelscourt from the old cabinteely road.. when you went to santa and got your new toy gun conficated because “that was the thing that shot john lennon”…… Ireland’s first dual Carriageway Foxrock… now sadly expanded(ired) ….Blakes…. those bits of chicken and getting used to the idea of eating out in the 1980’s… on and on until the flyover at UCD… still a major landmark as it’s the only stretch where people keep to 40mph. The RTE mast was the main thing … along with that really dodgy junction .. there always seemed to be glass over the road at that point. One of the other things was at night … entering into a tunnel of orange sodium lights… a true entry to a city.

Interesting… I still make out that anything along this route, even with broken glass looks ten times cleaner and polished looking than the state in which Dame Street and similar city centre locations presently look – Dame Street/College Green are wearing the dirt and filt well… but they haven’t got that same cleaness of streets like Donnybrook, Lesson St. even….

Brian O’ Hanlon.

The Mount Merrion garden suburb from the 1930’s will be of interest I would imagine, get off the road and have a trip around the suburb, it’s like another world.

Thanx, will do that.

Just beside the Stillorgan Park hotel there is a gem of an Art Deco house. Recently a small block of apartments has been built beside it which is trying to echo its style slightly. It is not finished yet, but I think it is quite nice.

Never thought Jim Gogarty could be beaten in the wandering stakes til now!

Dublin’s 50s semi-ds are usually of breeze block construction.

Yes mansions do have many chimneys – Castletown has over 90 hearths – with chimneys often concealed behind parapets or flues sharing exposed stacks.

The white pedestrian/cyclist bridge is another good landmark, most reports on the news relating to traffic are inevitably shot from here.

O’ Cll Bridge House – enough said…

Originally posted by BulldozerGirl
phil, I love the AIB buildings on Amiens street or whatever it’s called.

The building you refer to is known as the West Block. It is the centrepiece of the three buildings that launched Dublin as a serious Fund Management location. It was built in 1989 by Hardwicke and compliments Busaras quite well.

One thing that always confused me were the names of the three buildings. IFSC (closest to the river) was correctly named the South Block, The International Centre was named the West Block, but La Touche house (clostest to Connolly station) was called the East Block when in fact it is clearly the most Northerly of the Three. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by phil
Just beside the Stillorgan Park hotel there is a gem of an Art Deco house. Recently a small block of apartments has been built beside it which is trying to echo its style slightly. It is not finished yet, but I think it is quite nice.

They tore down the twin to that Art Deco Gem in order to build the apartment block, I posted a comment about it at the time but no one seemed interested.

Yes, I remember your other post. I could not remember the one which was destroyed to make way for the apartments. I had always only noticed the one that is still there. I still, to this day, cannot figure out why I never noticed the one that you are referring to.

Thanks

Phil

On the Stillorgan road, have a look at the poor old Esso Building – not ever a masterwork, but always well kept, in nice grounds, until very recently.

Shock – lanterns in Dublin without CFL bulbs in them!

To be fair, the lines on Kildare St are the only ones in the city centre; they link the Shelbourne’s car park in that red Georgian across to the hotel – the internal phone system probably.

What are much more crude are further down the street, where loads of security cameras erected last summer were simply tacked onto the lamposts with the yellow wires draped across to the Ntl Museum and Ntl Library, with some wires even suspended between lamposts.
More refined work was carried out on Merrion St.

Reality really is a bummer isn’t it?:)

And as for the white lines on the road – what are they about?!

older public lights can be connected above ground with a common switch wire. To underground might mean replacing the pole… Also – Dublin has alot more overground electricity than you’d think – this isn’t the UK.

Originally posted by BulldozerGirl

This wouldn’t be so bad if it was a rural village on the West coast, but for a residential area in the capital city – it’s a sign that there is corruption somewhere….

lol… yeah thats it

Just on that point lads,… because it is a good one… the Dublin traffic lately in the mornings did resemble something like rush hour after Sunday mass in a small village in Bally-go-backwards…. than the usual Dublin traffic which people are most used to.

I still think that providing ways for kids to get to school, somehow, other than driving through the traffic in moms back seat…. is going to be the answer in Dublin… I mean, look at a picture like that… you would probably get soaking wet before you reached the end of that road, not to mind getting to the local school this morning in the rain.

If things were denser, it would be much more efficient to run public transport systems… I think this point was raised quite well in the LUAS threads here at Archiseek.

It’s definitely quieter alright.
I had the privilege to speak to John Henry of the DTO about this.
He says kiddie traffic constitutes a whopping quarter of the city’s traffic in the morning – at least!
But interestingly the Office (who essentially plan the city’s transportation) really don’t blame parents for driving their kids to school, they acknowledge how dangerous the city is now for children, mingling with busy roads and being hassled by weirdos etc.
They fully accept that children under 10 or even 12 shouldn’t be cycling or walking alone, esp in the dark winter.
But they are trying out walking bus programmes where parents take it in turns to gather kids up in the mornings and walk them all to school. Other aspects they want to implement are better pedestrian crossings and public lighting, for kids who live closer to school and who can walk or cycle.
Certainly more buses for the ‘in betweens’ are need though.

It’s interesting, something that’s perhaps even evident on this site, is that out of the 8,820 teenagers cycling in Dublin (almost exclusively to school) 8200 are male, with a pathethic 620 female.
Going by that figure alone, and factoring in that maybe more girls walk to school (unlikely) there’s at least another 7000 girls capable of cycling to school – not even accounting for the vast hoards that are in cars either way!

Sorry for hijacking Bulldozergirl – keep the pics rolling.
I think the power lines in the suburbs, esp around Crumlin and Templogue and Terenure are kind of charming, kinda homely and communityish!

yeah cycling is definitely the way to go. It’s a great way of linking up to public tranport as well. Lots of people drive to dart stations for example. Try cycling that mile or 2, great way of getting a bit of fresh air. It’s a shame more offices don’t have changing and shower facilities to encourage people to cycle to work aswell. As for the fairer sex not cycling well I think a lot of them think its a bit of a sweaty business, might ruin their hair etc.

But interestingly the Office (who essentially plan the city’s transportation) really don’t blame parents for driving their kids to school, they acknowledge how dangerous the city is now for children, mingling with busy roads and being hassled by weirdos etc.

🙂

I agree, lets just ‘roll over’ and just let those ‘weirdos’ have the public domain, which is the city all to ’em selves eh? 🙂

Seriously though, I haven’t a child or nothing has ever happened to a child of mine…. my co-worker has three though…. and judging by the amount of ‘hassle’ he has with even simple things every hour and every day of the week… I can ‘kinda’ see where you are coming from.

However, some of these drivers driving to schools are trying to get out of suburban estates, onto ‘major’ commuting arterties,… only to exit 5 minutes down the road again,… and que up with another 50 cars leading up to a school gate or something like that…. then the said mother/father repeats this whole process except often in reverse this time…. so that they can get back to their suburban estate and meet ‘Bernie and Jossie’ for tea and pies at 9.30am and a good old chat on the sitting room couch, while the washing machine and dish washer does the work in the kitchen…. by then… it is time to start thinking about ‘collecting’ the kids again!

it is this nature of the way a car carrying kids to school behaves, which makes it cause that many problems I think to general ‘people going to work’ kinda traffic. Noone is going to tell me…. there isn’t some other way… to hell with weirdos… I am not really sure who are the weirdos and who are not anymore to be honest…. the kids who grow up like this have absolutely no sense of their own independence…. and grow up ‘hating’ their own parents for being so over-protective and over-bearing upon them as kids and their personal space…. they do not actually thank the parents for it.

The point is, that in other more well planned, higher density urban environments…. things like LUAS actually become things, which the kids can grow up with and become very familiar with… and learn to trust and to ‘know’…. as all the other kids do. I mean, nowadays… the only highway that kids in Dublin city are beginning to know and trust unfortunately is the information super highway…. and we all know what this leads to…. all kids get carted back and forth from schools nowadays… have computer and broadband connectivity and I think end up… to much in these little ‘computer cell worlds’ both at home/school/university…. where you can really meet the ‘weirdos’….

Modern housing design trends…

http://www.planetizen.com/news/item.php?id=12711

Brian O’ Hanlon.

Here is one miscellaneous pic, which I think is worth posting…

http://www.cyburbia.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=4915&password=&sort=1&size=big&cat=508&page=

Good pic.

It’s important to point out it’s young children the office speaks of, the likes of whom everyone gives out about seeing in the back of Mammy’s four by four, who’s feet can’t even touch the ground, and who feature in every car ad.
They don’t blame these parents for bringing these kids in the car if the distance is over 10/15 mins, and nor would I.

Also of note, and probably the most important factor that you mention Brian, and the DTO, is that it all fuels car dependency with kids growing up thinking the car’s the only way.

All of this ties into the DTOs vast brief of planning transport that is fundamentally linked into planning as a whole, higher densities etc.

BDG, that’s classier than silly Georgians – or indeed anything else for that matter?
Ok…

what is their web site?

I mean, for myself and those other posters who aren’t aware of who/what/where/when/how….. in relation to DTO…

Talking of environment/health/school transport etc, etc…. I am sure I am not alone in this experience either…. but when I attended a comprehensive down the country about a decade ago now, we had to endure an hour long bus journey each and every morning/evening of our lives….. which basically went all over the landscape to various little bungalows collecting the kids who lived in them.

Now, it is very topical at the moment to talk about smoking and how secondary smoking can damage the health of those working in pubs…. but I was a non-smoker going to school and still am thankfully…. but for every day of those five years I did attend the secondary school, for a full hour to and from school every day…. I was in a bus designed to transport around 50 or 60 students I think, which instead carried about 100,…. or which 70/80 of them smoked!

I.e. Everyone except the youngest first years… I can tell you one thing,… when the bus reached its destination at the school in the mornings… one could not see from one end of the bus to the other, the air was so laden with smoke. This is no exaggeration, or embelishment of the truth. It is just funny how that was ‘tolerated’ 10 years ago in Ireland, while today, 50/60/70 year old regular pub go-ers cannot even sit back at weekends and enjoy their smoke/drink with their buddies,… in some well ventilated area of a local pub.

Brian.

P.S. Nice pics of a new design for a train station/park n’ ride type of thing here:

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5373

Originally posted by BulldozerGirl

OK, I know it’s a bit boring, but it’s the only worthwhile thing I saw on my short trip. It’s not really that special but the location is fantastic. The people there have a wonderful view. It’s a classier place than those silly Georgian building offices in Leeson or wherever else in Dublin, who think they’re all that. I don’t like these old brown buildings which make the whole city look the same.

Re: Comments on system built close to Bakers corner:

It’s called economy class

Tried to insert an image of Upper Mount St, but my new computer of 1999 has aged badly, a little like shiny low spec buildings perhaps?

😀

Uggghh

Originally posted by BulldozerGirl

OK, I know it’s a bit boring, but it’s the only worthwhile thing I saw on my short trip. It’s not really that special but the location is fantastic. The people there have a wonderful view. It’s a classier place than those silly Georgian building offices in Leeson or wherever else in Dublin, who think they’re all that. I don’t like these old brown buildings which make the whole city look the same.

phil – I was looking for the Art Deco house today; it disappeared!

garethace – I never understand what you say.

Paul Clerkin – Congrats on the new wider forum layout. We will save many pages.

Bulldozer Girl:
I don’t want to cause any offence or anthing, but I really am confused by your chain of thought here! Could you explain what it is you are trying to say?

Phil,

It reads a bit like, Dubai is a glitzy, shiny, new and tall paradise risen out of the sand and Dublin is silly, brown and old and soooo
boring……..only messin’ around with ya b’girl, it’s always good to hear the opinions of foreign residents on our infra-structure.

Thanks for the pic Graham, the one I was trying to post was taken from the doorway of No 1 Upper Mount St and takes in the Shiny New Cresent Hall. Do you have any pics of the deco garage it replaced?

I think Ms BullDozer, that you don’t necessarily understand that Dublin could do the Dubai thing, knock down all it’s old buildings, and build to the sky. Even if it did that and create a Manhattan, it would not be Dublin anymore. More than likely, however, we would create a soggy Los Angeles with no soul, nor meaning.

i am not sure what you mean by a “modern” city; such wanton destructiveness would see Rome burned to the ground and replaced by shiny Steel and Glass monstrosities, and new roads destroying everyting in their path: all to facilitate traffic flow. Dublin needs some more newness, tis true, but not at the expense of the old. Even if the old is not, we admit, quite as old as Rome.

i’ve been to Dubai myself and wasn’t altogether impressed, though it was nicer than Abu Dhabi. It would shock you to find that on that trip to the UAE ( where my brother lives) and surrounding countries, I prefered Muskat.

Originally posted by BulldozerGirl

phil – I was looking for the Art Deco house today; it disappeared!

garethace – I never understand what you say.

Paul Clerkin – Congrats on the new wider forum layout. We will save many pages.

Bulldozer Girl, this is what I was questioning! What do you mean by those quotes you used?

Bulldozer Girl: Sorry about my last question. I have just realised what you are saying. The house I am talking about is just beside the Stillorgan Park Hotel. What is the Yellow one that you are referring to?

Ireland is a high-cost country, the facilities of the Fitzwilliam are standard and similar to that of any other hotel in Western Europe.
Dubai is hardly comparable. Either way, I agree the Fitzwilliam needs taking down a peg or two – so full of itself despite it being one of the worst buildings in the city and in a poor location.

‘Old brown buildings’ are a matter of opinion, but to most people and certainly to most on this site these Georgians are incredibly beautiful to look at. Indeed I tend to favour brown stock bricks over red, they’re more sophisticated and reserved.
And we most certainly did not do right in allowing buildings to be demolished to make things safe – had anyone bothered to enforce basic matainance and upkeep on these buildings the city wouldn’t have been in the mess it was.

The pic I posted indeed sums up what Dublin is like in general – but as a charming, crumbly, low-rise muddled city, not backward or regressive. My pixelated 3rd generation rubbish doesn’t do that beautiful scene justice, nor the photograph itself which I must attribute to the highly skilled building photographer Hugh McConville.

(No sorry Diaspora I don’t have a pic – saw it in a book somewhere but can’t remember what it was!)

I really like the new lime green livery on the Dart/ commuter trains (second last picture) and also just in relation to the Georges Quay towers I think they look well from a lot of vantage points around the city!!

Keep the pics coming, b’girl, and may I say that you take an interesting photo, I mean those pyramid topped buildings on the quays, I hated them on my last trip to Dublin, but ya know, they look alright on your photo.

And you’re right when you say that Dun Laoghaire is cool, it was a great place to have grown up in. You will no doubt have noticed the massive piers that form the harbour, they were erected in 1821, when Dubai was a small fishing village and the main activity in the neighbourhood was goat-herding and the biggest export was dates and figs instead of oil.

Interesting to hear Dun Laoghaire and Dubai being mentioned together as one of the Baths Projects was to be a massive sail shaped building, similar to the hotel in Dubai.

Bulldozer Girl,

There is another High Victorian gem around the back of the hospital, it is a hotel. It is well worth a look.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/ballsbridge/eastmoreland_place/eastmoreland_hotel.html

I passed this way this evening and the restoration of this building looks great; someone should post some miscellaneous pics of same