Dublin vistas

@RoryW wrote:

Have we forgotten how to close vistas in this country

Not sure if we ever knew, starting with Upper O’Connell street … surely the Rotunda could have done a nice job capping that one.

We used to be okay, but we were never great at it. Even City Hall is slightly off axis.

Interesting challenge- can anyone name an urban building that is located and oriented precisely on an axis?

(I say urban because a few country houses are bang on- though fewer than you might think. Would this merit a new thread?)

Am I dreaming or was the royal hospital in Kilmainham originally built on an axis with trinity college? Or perhaps Dublin castle? Just a vague memory so completely unsure.

@ctesiphon wrote:

Interesting challenge- can anyone name an urban building that is located and oriented precisely on an axis?

(I say urban because a few country houses are bang on- though fewer than you might think. Would this merit a new thread?)

Yep maybe a new thread for this one !
Can’t think of many in Dublin anyway … I think Leinster House is pretty much on line with Molesworth Street, until that street itself runs off course after its junction with south frederick.
What do ye reckon ?

Pepper Canister aka St, Stephen’s and Lower Mount seem to be bang on line.

Trinity and Dame St, once that street straightens up.
Connolly Station -or its tower – and Talbot St (one thing we’ve lost through the Spike is the long vista through Mary St, Henry St and Talbot St to the station.

alto vetro on line with forbes street when viewed from the north quays…..

Alto Vetro looks down Pearse St too.

@ctesiphon wrote:

We used to be okay, but we were never great at it. Even City Hall is slightly off axis.

Interesting challenge- can anyone name an urban building that is located and oriented precisely on an axis?

(I say urban because a few country houses are bang on- though fewer than you might think. Would this merit a new thread?)

Luke Gardiner/ James Gandon’s Custom House is bang on the Gardiner Street axis, and….

The Kings Inns at the top of Henrietta Street :p:p:p

If people regard the Rotunda as off-the-axis with O’Connell Street, then we must also regard the Inns as off-axis with Henrietta Street

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

If people regard the Rotunda as off-the-axis with O’Connell Street, then we must also regard the Inns as off-axis with Henrietta Street

This is very true – I was making a (poor) attempt at facetiousness, or perhaps I am also intrigued that even when the lads had the chance (messrs Gandon, Johnston, and Cooley), the end product still ends up deliberately set off-axis; ’tis most peculiar when one thinks about it :confused::)

City Hall is dead-on axis with Parliament and Capel Streets. But then it was definitely planned that way where a lot of other schemes weren’t. Look at Leinster House and Merrion Square for example.

One other one that is spot on, albeit a short street and a Gothic Revival essay, is the former St Andrew’s Church at the top of Trinity Street. In fact it was only yesterday that I was admiring this quality about that building. Designed by Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon, it was built between 1860 and 1862 after a fire in 1860 had razed the previous oval shaped ediface, which had had a facade by Johnston, and was originally built in 1670. Much more about it in Christine Casey’s Buildings of Dublin, p468-9 🙂

…And for sheer symmetry, across the way at Foster Place, one can throw in the end portland stone gateway – regrettably what is now the former Bank of Ireland’s Arts Centre.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

City Hall is dead-on axis with Parliament and Capel Streets. But then it was definitely planned that way where a lot of other schemes weren’t. Look at Leinster House and Merrion Square for example.

“The site was roughly 100ft square, slightly deeper than wide, and sloped eastward to a precarious boundry by the underground course of the river Poddle. The site was not symmetrically aligned with Parliament Street, so Cooley’s domed rotunda and portico are not axially alinged with it”

Christine Casey’s ‘Dublin’ pg.362

Would have to question the alignment of city hall too Paul, definitely intended to terminate the vista, but it does sit slightly off line with parliament.

Can’t say i do consider the Rotunda off-axis, there’s too much in it. I’ve no issue with the skewed angle; that would have added to the potential vista all the more – to have the domed steeple lined up with the central median of O’Connell Street, with Parnell square directly behind would have been great. As it is, Upper OCS, despite the likes of the Parnell monument, lacks direction & sense of place.

And if I recall, the off-axis alignment of the Rotunda was surprisingly deliberate. It’s thought Gardiner deemed it more important to have a main route (i.e. Cavendish Row) linking Sackville Mall to Dorset Street – then and still the main road into the city – than have the Rotunda directly on axis. Also when you consider Sackville Mall was more of an elongated residential square than a gradiose thoroughfare, perhaps it’s easier to imagine why the Rotunda placement wasn’t so important. Sackville Street was extended to the river 30 years after the Rotunda was completed.

As mentioned, City Hall is sadly not on axis with Parliament Street, in spite of both being planned. It’s only a slight deviation to the right, but enough to be noticable. What’s irritating is that it’s not even the Poddle ‘proper’ that caused this move, but a tributary of it. The river flows out under the Palace Street Castle gate and splits in two – the main course heads straight out across the road under the Olympia, while the other deviates off towards City Hall, then down towards the Liffey and rejoins the other course down at the Clarence. It’s as if it goes out of the way to upset City Hall!

Yeah lets face it, Dublin was never great on the aul vistas. We couldn’t be arsed frankly lol.

Yes:

Leinster House – Molesworth St.
Pepper Cannister Church – Mount Street.

No:

King’s Inns
Custom House
City Hall
Trinity
Alto Vetro
Rotunda

Remember, I said ‘located’ and ‘oriented’.

@hutton wrote:

’tis most peculiar when one thinks about it

This is my point.

Ah but if only Abercrombie’s grand plans of 1922 were realised we’d have a tonne of avenues and vistas etc etc… But we were fairly busy as a nation back then I guess

@alonso wrote:

Ah but if only Abercrombie’s grand plans of 1922 were realised we’d have a tonne of avenues and vistas etc etc…

…and no Henrietta Street. Swings and roundabouts, you might say. (Metaphorically, I should add- though the Inner Tangent probably included a few literal city centre roundabouts.)

Vistas – St Georges Church and Hardwick street
The Black Church and Gramby Row
Holles Street Hospital & Georgian Mile

It can be done but we just dont do it anymore

@Rory W wrote:

Vistas – St Georges Church and Hardwick street
The Black Church and Gramby Row
Holles Street Hospital & Georgian Mile

No, Yes, and Yes, though I wonder whether the Black Church -Granby vista was actually intentional or just a side effect of the island site. (Thinking about it, Semple seems to have had a thing for churches at junctions or on island sites- Rathmines, Black Church, and didn’t he do the one on Anglesea Road?) Anyway, while that one is debatable, the hospital at Holles Street is in fact an asymmetrical building with an off-centre pediment aligned with the Mile, which signifies to me that the axiality is fully intended.

@GrahamH wrote:

Yeah lets face it, Dublin was never great on the aul vistas. We couldn’t be arsed frankly lol.

What I find odd about this whole thing is that during Georgian times, Dublin was a city characterised by planarity and frontality- the Baroque concept of the building as a sculptural object ‘in the round’ was largely alien here for the most part. Yet when it was most required (from a strict classical point of view) – at the ends of vistas – it was fudged.

(Minor point, Graham- I think Dublin was pretty good at vistas, just not very good at closing them.)

@ctesiphon wrote:

What I find odd about this whole thing is that during Georgian times, Dublin was a city characterised by planarity and frontality- the Baroque concept of the building as a sculptural object ‘in the round’ was largely alien here for the most part. Yet when it was most required (from a strict classical point of view) – at the ends of vistas – it was fudged.

(Minor point, Graham- I think Dublin was pretty good at vistas, just not very good at closing them.)

Couldn’t agree with you more – there’s little more to add to that. In fact I think that is one of the reasons for the fetish of the ‘Georgian corner’ in Dublin; it’s so incredibly rare that you get a townhouse or element of streetscape of substance in this city. It’s all a charade!

And of course this underscores what a loss the WSC developments were. What they never contrived through axially-aligned vistas was at least made up for with streetscapes of distinction and solidity through well-contrived turning points, sadly nearly all of which have vanished.

someone mentioned the Spire blocking the view towards Amiens St earlier. May I venture that it also in fact closes two?

Back to the present & the DDDA are capping their own, ahem, ‘modern mile’ (i like to call it the ‘mile of crap’) with, you’ve guessed it, 32 stories of crap 😀

ok, i’m being a little harsh … the alignment of the watchtower is actually a good thing – the completed Mayor street will probably be the longest ‘closed vista’ in the city. Although the renders of the watchtower aren’t promising, i’m hoping the finished product might be worthy of its on axis location.

Thhe view from the junction of Mountjoy Sq/Upr Gardiner st towards the Presbyterian Church spire at Parnell Sq and Nth Fred is a favourite of mine

urban building that is located and oriented precisely on an axis
have thought of quite a few, some intended, some accidental

intended:
Belvedere House – Nth Georges St
Law Society – Blackhall St
Ely House – Hume St
Cecilia House – Crow St
Christchurch – Lord Edward St
St Annes church – Anne St St
Presbyterian church – Earlsfort Terrace
Mercer Hospital – William St
ICS Building – O’Connell St/Bridge
Bank Lords Portico – College St
AiB – Mary St 🙁
Corner Buildings – Mountjoy Sq

Accidental:
Church – Cows Lane
Clerys – Prince St
St Catherines – Bridgefoot St

Some of the finest set pieces were located in the Gardiner Estate. The Church (Methodist Hall?) located on Nth Charles St was (is) quite a domestic building terminating the equally domestic Upr Rutland St. Great Picture of this small georgian street in recent book (Dublin, an urban history). This street doesnt even exist anymore.

nearly all you’ve listed are slightly off-line with the street itself rperse, are they not ?

I feel some detective work coming on!

(Also, I like when low post-count posters come out of the woodwork- a sign that a thread is more than usually interesting? I still think this might merit its own thread- perhaps when I return with some photos I’ll start one up.)

EDIT: Thanks Paul.

Candidate for most disappointing vista would be the view down Westland Row / Lombard St. towards that Jury’s Inn on the North Wall.

Does the Gormley Wire Man step into that vista do we know?

‘Low post-count poster’! It’s always good to get a new label.

Aren’t the Berkeley Library steps and the Printhouse, attractively and perhaps even perfectly aligned.

@rperse wrote:

Church – Cows Lane

As planned this would have been aligned perfectly with the church but the health and safety twits at the corpo decided to muck it up insisting that cows lane was wide enough to drive a fire truck down. (i dont think they thought IT HAS STEPS ON IT – idiots)

Yes and then they added features to try and re-establish the illusion of alignment while blocking any fire engine.

Ha – it’s still attractive nonetheless. Why wasn’t Essex Street sufficient I wonder?

Just around the corner, as mentioned, City Hall is off axis.

And the view down Capel Street. Another few inches would have aligned the flagpole with the dome in the picture, so you can see it’s clearly off centre.

The vista of the Old Library in Trinity when emerging from the Arts Block in late afternoon is always breathtaking.

And the perfectly aligned campanile in Parliament Square with the main entrance. I don’t have the view in question, but it’s probably the only accurately composed vista in the city. Interestingly it’s also one of the few instances where there was complete control over the setting, which says a lot.

Ah this is a wonderful thread 🙂

Nice shots there Graham…suppose City Hall best appears aligned if one walks along the left hand side of Parliament St…

Re Cows Lane, imo its a real cock-up in that the view to the key vista-closer, the cut-stone church, is obstructed by the centrally located street lights. People don’t seem to know how to interact with this space, and I dont think that these centrally placed units assist…

Another nice little eye-catcher is the view thru the lane to Government Buildings/ Chas Mahal from Fitzwilliam St – seemingly unintended, its a real charmer 🙂

@GrahamH wrote:

And the perfectly aligned campanile in Parliament Square with the main entrance. I don’t have the view in question, but it’s probably the only accurately composed vista in the city.

I really must upload the bigger versions:
http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/trinity/campanile_lge.html

http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/trinity/campanile_detail_lge.html

@hutton wrote:

Another nice little eye-catcher is the view thru the lane to Government Buildings/ Chas Mahal from Fitzwilliam St – seemingly unintended, its a real charmer 🙂

damn it, that was meant to be a secret! see it every day. it’s great

Isn’t it! The contrast of such a monumental building viewed down a dinky little laneway is so striking.

Some great subtle ones listed there rperse, with Mary Street in the so-bad-it’s-good category 🙂

The Four Courts viewed through the hole on Cook Street is another. Wonderful to get such a sharp head-on view from a distance, though it is compromised a little by an invading building if I recall. It’d remind you of the elevational drawing on the back of the old £20 note.

one step forward!

don’t give me to much shit for this!!!
its called i don’t want a pica dilly circus
plaza yes

this is one very important vista as you walk up towards this area from grafton street minus the poles and carkpark sign and the rest

Not on axis.

Next!

(Do we really have to put up with this nonsense?)

not exactly the right view but you get the idea of the scale difference…

This building would top the list with the most damage to a vista???

Which vista would that be? It looks well book-ending the Liffey with Liberty Hall. And I don’t think its height is a bad thing when seen from any angle really.
BTW, the sheer number of bloody buses!

would be dublins best 360??? if you had a higher point in the middle of the bridge and fix the discussed things??

Ugh! Those planters (them boxes) are so crass. Bring back the ‘Tomb of the unknown Gurrier’, now that was class.

do crap vistas count?
If so I noticed that the ugly AIB on Capel Street closes the view down Henry Street, and the side of the brutalist Elm Park office development closes the view as one drives south along Sandymount Strand. That drive also evokes memories of O’Gara’s classic line “the waste that is Sandymount Strand”. It looked fantastic as ever yesterday afternoon

Sandymount Strand is also the safest beach in Ireland, it’s impossible to drown on it. Even when the tide is in, you have to walk out about two miles to get your depth.

@gunter wrote:

Sandymount Strand is also the safest beach in Ireland, it’s impossible to drown on it. Even when the tide is in, you have to walk out about two miles to get your depth.

Enjoy it before the floating suburbs/ orbital motorway are built 😉

@fergalr wrote:

Enjoy it before the floating suburbs/ orbital motorway are built 😉

You’re not referring to the ‘Coastal Quarter’ and ‘Peninsula Parkway’?

when driving down grafton st into st stephens green park remember to that you can only do 50 km/hr and avoid
hitting women and children if you can…

thank you frank you only go to prove my point 😀

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee6Bcu9wauY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOalno8zH6c&feature=related

has any one seen my teddy bear????
i don’t know who took this photo

Hmmm and theres David McSavage chatting up a young one in post 49 – well she looks like a cutie anyway David! Dublin vistas, where would you be without them? 🙂

Probably asking her does she know any good jokes?!>?

Dublin Vista no. 257?

No. 10 Mill Street from Newmarket, down Mill Lane.

What would this have looked like circa 1720?

@gunter wrote:

What would this have looked like circa 1720?
10th March 2008 11:56 AM

less depressing i’d imagine 🙁

@gunter wrote:

Dublin Vista no. 257?

No. 10 Mill Street from Newmarket, down Mill Lane.

Absolutely feckin disgraceful. To be let get like this has been an outrage 😡

It really is disgraceful that the above building is being left as is. Christine Casey gives a fairly detailed account of it, further indicating its significance:

@Pevsner Architectural Guide to Dublin by Christine Casey wrote:

On the adjoining MILL STREET is an early C18 house (No.10) of considerable scale and sophistication reputed to have been built as a dower house by either the 4th (d1707) or the 5th (d1715) Earl of Meath. Remodelled in 1894 as a school and mission of G.P. Beater. It terminates an axial vista from Newmarket and Mill Lane. Tall and relatively narrow, of 5 bays and 3 rendered storeys over basement, with a gabled brick porch and brick top floor with a gabled centrepiece. Originally it had a pair of curvilinear gables, flush sash windows and an attenuated Corinthian doorcase crowned by a vigorous swan-necked pediment. The interior was vandalized in the 1980. The rooms were wainscted and the stair had three fluted and twisted balusters per thread, Corinthian newals and a richly carved apron to the landing.

Anybody know anything as to the ownership?

Hutton: 10 Mill St. was owned by Eircom for generations, they had a big yard behind the house, and it was in their care that the house fell apart. I was in the house once, about ten years ago and you could see the original panelling on the stairwell rotting in front of your eyes. I remember seeing the huge original chunky panelled front door just lying there in the hall like a massive bar of chocolate.

The property was sold and amalgamated into a development site a couple of years ago and now has the benefit of one of those HKR mega-scheme planning permissions. There’s a couple of decent renders on the HKR web site, but the house doesn’t feature.

To deal with the particular problem of the house, a prestigeous conservation practice was brought in . This is where the Venice/Burra Charter fog descends. Everyone knows that no. 10 Mill Street is the most complete and the best documented twin gable ‘Dutch Billy’ in the country, but incredibly, the version of the house that these geniuses are proposing to conserve / restore is the mutilated 1890s version, apparently because we don’t have enough Vistorian confections in Terenure and Rathgar!

The get out clause here is that, in conservation, you’re supposed to stop where conjecture begins, but in this case that’s just being lazy. The two widely published drawings of the house, prior to the Victorian alterations, differ on the profile of the curved gables due to different levels of drawing ability on the part of the two artists, but a less well known, head on, photograph exists from about the vantage point on Mill lane that I took my photograph, and with a bit of photogrametry, accurate restoration drawings could be prepared, if there was a will.

There’s another close up photograph of a man in a top hat standing on the steps in front of the magnificant doorway, that was published in one of the vintage Dublin photo books, a good while back, but I can’t remember which one. The Architectural archive probably have all of this stuff.

The man who knows the most about this house and the whole gabled tradition is Peter Walsh, the former curator of the Guinness museum, but he’s not the type to lead an angry mob.

A nice hodge podge mess of different styles from different periods. Not a particularly nice vista but it has a nice warm glowy warming glow name. (btw I tried to get Leinster House through Fitzwilliam Lane but it didn’t come out right -Bertie must’ve been in coz all the lines were blurred and you couldn’t make out what the hell was going on)

@gunter wrote:

The property was sold and amalgamated into a development site a couple of years ago and now has the benefit of one of those HKR mega-scheme planning permissions. There’s a couple of decent renders on the HKR web site, but the house doesn’t feature.

It’s actually Anthony Reddy who are doing the scheme incorporating 10 Mill Street. But HKR are doing a scheme on an adjoining site incorporating the Tenters pub – ABP Ref. 216936 – which appears to be commencing now.

No movement yet on the 10 Mill Street site – ABP Ref. 217613– and no mention of it on Reddys’ website. Wonder what’s happening …

The two widely published drawings of the house, prior to the Victorian alterations, differ on the profile of the curved gables due to different levels of drawing ability on the part of the two artists, but a less well known, head on, photograph exists from about the vantage point on Mill lane that I took my photograph, and with a bit of photogrametry, accurate restoration drawings could be prepared, if there was a will.

Are you SURE this photograph exists gunter? I have HEARD it exists too but I have never seen it, and it’s not in the place you would most expect to see it: the planning application conservation report on the building by the ‘prestigious’ conservation practice you refer to. I won’t believe it exists til I see it.

Is the tenters gone? I used to love that pub.

No, it’s being kept thankfully.

That’s good – I lived on the SCR from 1992-2000 and used to like meeting friends for a few down there

@Devin wrote:

Are you SURE this photograph exists gunter? I have HEARD it exists too but I have never seen it, and it’s not in the place you would most expect to see it: the planning application conservation report on the building by the ‘prestigious’ conservation practice you refer to. I won’t believe it exists til I see it.

Yes. it exists.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes!

however, I don’t actually have it.

I’m 90% certain that it turned up in a Donore Ave. school journal of all places. I don’t have any more infomation on it than that. It was flashed in front of me for about five seconds and taken away again. It was a pretty small photograph, as re-printed in the journal, and not exactly 8 mega-pixels, but the curved gables were distinct and I can confirm that it was the guy with the crayon, not the guy with the drawing pen, that got the profiles right!

Like I said before, Peter Walsh, former curator of the Guinness Museum (before it became the ‘Storehouse’) is the man who should have the goods on this and all matters ‘Dutch Billy’. If he gets hit by a bus, we’re fucked.

I’m pushing it a bit (a lot!), and OK, crappy camera phone pic, and off centre, but if you stand a bit to the right of where I took this, Liberty Hall gets pretty close to the centre of Tara St. Just a traffic light pole in the way! Also helped by the 2 storey eyesore on the corner of Burgh Quay opening up the view.

I’ll miss Liberty Hall if it goes 🙁

The view from Capel Street, along Strand Street. This one is bang on axis.

The view down Chesterfield Ave in the Phoenix Park towards the big Guinness Buildings is a lovely, if unwitting vista. Especially on a summer evening.

I noticed the other day that the new development on Sth. King St. beside The Gaiety, is partially obscuring the view of Mercer’s Hospital clock tower – when viewed from along Stephen’s Green North.

Probably one of the first formal vistas in Dublin is the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (1684) from the formal gardens, which, as re-planted by the OPW, is maturing quite nicely.

I also like the salmon coloured render on the great little double external step link structure, as repaired recently by the OPW. It gives a suitably baroque touch, and was presumably well researched.

These tablets are working out fine.

Yes, but look at that lighting (?) pole: how baroque is that!

@gunter wrote:

These tablets are working out fine.

What are you on, gunter? Spill the beans, or better still share some :p

Agreed re the salmon coloured render – a brave choice that works very well.

[ATTACH]7343[/ATTACH]
Unidentified church in the liberties. Taken from Meath street

It’s St Nicolas of Myra church (aka Santa’s grotto)

It’s St Nicholas of Myra (or St Nicholas Without); magnificent interior (if you haven’t seen it, go); dreadful exterior forecourt. The facade could do with a clean-up, coupled with a rethink about the forecourt. tantalising the way the facade is just off-centre to the street.

Designed by a guy called Leeson, I think. Not a lot is known about Leeson. I’ve been trying to connect him with the mortuary chapel in Goldenbridge Cemetry in Inchicore, but only really the style and date to go on.

The Francis Street church has a really creepy crypt, which I was in once and couldn’t wait to get back up out of.

Apologies for the dodgy white balance – can’t find the decent one.

Santy should also be reinstated over the portico – anyone know where he is? (other than the North Pole of course)

The vista down Patrick Street during a rare lull in traffic can be dramatic.

Poolbeg Street looking east. Sunny day syndrome.

Just for mischief, and with the way the circle is turning, if you paid someone to clean the windows, photo-shopped in some coloured panels (in place of the barber shop green) and did a bit of creative photography, you could slip Hawkin’s House into the AAI awards next year and chance your arm at a ‘Special Mention’!

You realize that when Hawkin’s House goes, we will lose the single biggest concentration of galvanized steel windows in Dublin.