Reply To: The Abbey Theatre – should it stay or should it go

Style-wise is’nt it a pity that we are over a hundred years on from times when we could probably have something like Garnier’s notable opera house in Paris gracing the Liffey. Such imperial building styles of times then conveyed the sense of the ‘national’To rebuild the old Abbey today would be perhaps anachronistic and as it was such a small and modest building. Maybe as already said it’s old facade could be incorporated into a new design either on the exterior or interior…..how about putting it within a glass atrium. Sad to think that Scott had his chance and blew it.His product amounting to a featureless concrete block which dated badly. However we will probably get something resembling the new Project Art’s Theatre which is a fine modern building but would’nt evoke a sense of the ‘national’, especially when one thinks of Yeats, Lady Gregory, ‘republican rebellions’ etc…. and times of old and the grand. Now, that would be a challenge for an architect. (Come to think of it the national theatre in London on the banks of the Thames is a hideous 60’s mass too.)