Reply To: Cathedrals of Commerce

http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000061;p=2#000017

What do you think?

Urban decay or poor urban regeneration – it seems to me that Dublin provided a very ideal set of conditions for very poor mass-scale urban regeneration in the past couple of years.

One of the things that I liked about the LUAS Fluid Spaces book by UCD students was that for once, it looked as if someone was thinking about the future of the city, rather than the quick turnover.

Not that all development isn’t designed to make a turnover… I mean, I think of Dublin, Belfast, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and any big port cities – this change of land use thing is a very interesting urban debate – all over the world in fact, post industrial etc, etc, etc.

It would be interesting to think of how many small semi-industrial uses existed in areas around Smithfield and Temple Bar up until the eighties.

I mean, Guinness is just the very last tail end of that and perhaps the containerisation down below – what will happen when you take away all those uses, what has happened…. I think that really is a story about an east/west access and the river.

That unique character-enhancing factor that has shaped many cities.