Re: Re: Dublin skyline

there’s a big difference between a church spire and a high rise office or apartment block. Church spires punctuated the sky line and usually taper as they get taller. They are not generally oppresive but give visual interest to a skyline. Look at how St John’s Cathedral in Limerick soars from the flat plane of county limerick. It doesn’t dominate though even though it’s nearly 300 feet. Another difference is that these high rises didn’t establish any kind of presedent for a neighbourhood, nobody was going to build as high as the neogothic spire, but people fear (for good or bad) that if high rises are built that a precedent is set for all future building. So the comparison with church building isn’t really valid.

One could argue though that as we’re not building churches any more to pierce the skyline that we need to get our cotemporay buildings to do this. Compare the skyline of Dun Laoighre with its spires with the flat docklands which needs a few “spires” to break it up.