Reply To: What style is that?

The Dept of Industry building (built 1930s, designed by OPW arhcitects) and the Andrew St Post Office (built late 1940s, also by OPW architects) are beautiful buildings – modernist but with a classical sensibility. I don’t know that there is a ‘name’ for this style, and I think the buildings are all the better for it, lively and dignified at the same time and built fo beautiful materials.
Other buildings from that time you may be familiar with are Rathmines Post Office/various Garda stations (eg Drumcondra with its neighbouring buildings in a similar style).
The other buildings you mention are not civic buildings – they are similar in style but with a more self-conscious ‘stylishness’ given their primary purpose of entertainment. As the style of the day was a watered down deco, that’s what they have too. The full-blooded deco buildings to look at are teh Gas Company on D’Olier St and the former Winstons shop (until recently Rehab’s offices) on the corner of Sth Gt. George’s St and Dame St.

Similar buildings are to be found all over Britain and in other (non-fascist) European countries. The fascist regimes just built them bigger on another scale – try walking along the great 1930s Boulevards of Moscow…