Re: Re: O’ Connell Street

@Graham Hickey wrote:

Despite both being raving speculators, they clearly had a vision for the city, an aim to increase its standing on an international level.

The Gardiners really were visionary in a Dublin context in that they were the first developers to plan ‘New Towns’ and not just develop individual edge settlement extensions. In a modern day context speculation really is simply prediction and there is nothing to stop speculators leaving a good legacy behind them, a simple piece of prediction would be that densities and that architectural standards will increase, in essence the perfect excuse to hold land whilst prices are rising. When one looks at places like New York and Hong Kong there have been many speculators who have left lasting monuments to their greed of incredible architectural quality.

The Gardiners should have a monument although I would feel much more comfortable with a contemporary work perhaps based on a broad site outline of the overall master plans that were executed.