Re: Re: Dublin Castle – Who is in Charge?

Well the Upper Yard was being built as part of the same building programme as the Treasury Building, 1712-1717 (halting for a year in 1715), so they were contemporaneous. In that respect, it made sense for Brooking to depict the primary feature of the Castle: the Upper Yard.

The Treasury Building always had a parapet roof. It is essentially a smaller, brick version of Burgh’s Library in Trinity which was being built at the same time (he was one busy man that decade). It is clear that both mansard and parapet roofs were simultaneously fashionable at this point in public building, but considered suitable for different types of structure. Dr Steevens’ Hospital was built with a mansard, by Burgh, a decade after the Castle works were first drafted, while mansards were also closely associated with quadrangles – whether they be collegiate, military, or royal residences. Therefore with Robinson’s precedent, as much as Burgh may have baulked at it forcing his hand in designing the new Castle, continuing with a mansard roof in the Upper Yard was still more than acceptable as an architectural typology for a hybrid palatial, residential and administrative complex.