Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

@Devin wrote:

. . . . I know Amsterdam well. I’m guessing you’d like to illustrate disparities in style and scale of the houses.

Yeah, that’s what I had in mind right enough.

@Devin wrote:

………… but come on, it’s Amsterdam. There’s hardly any need to argue about what it is, now.

The point is, if we all know what Amsterdam is . . . . a ‘coherent’ gabled townscape, and it’s streetscapes typically incorporate wide ”disparities in style and scale”, then we should be able to see in the lost gabled streetscapes of Dublin [which incorporated perhaps less disparity in style and scale] also a ”coherent gabled townscape”.
. . . . back off Graham

I’m working on some comparisons to illustrate this point, which no doubt Devin will dismiss as ”fantasy drawings” :rolleyes:

@GrahamH wrote:

. . . . . I wouldn’t say for a moment that Georgian houses landed in Dublin ‘fully formed’, . . . . . Yes it is fair to say that Gardiner houses were largely landed from outer space, but that’s where I’d draw the line. Everything else of this period as far as I’m concerned is a locally-driven transitional movement.

That analysis down-plays the pivotal role of Richard Cassels.

There’s quite a good potted biography of Cassels in Wikipedia.

Cassels was born in 1690 in Kassel in Germany [hence the family name, usually anglicised to Castle]. Apparently he was of French/Dutch extraction which together with his German birth could have promised so much, architecturally, but he went to London in the 1720s, where it appears he was turned, becoming a follower of Burlington and a proselytizing Palladian.

As luck would have it he arrived in Ireland in 1727 or 28, brought over to design a country house for a Fermanagh M.P. but instead of staying up there where he could do little harm, before you can say ‘building boom’ he shows up in Dublin and promptly becomes the flavour of the month . . . . for the next 33 years.

Cassels early Dublin town houses, 80 Stephen’s Green, [1730], 85 Stephen’s Green [ 1738] and Bective House, Smithfield [1739]

These Burlingtonesque London imports were followed in the next decade by seemingly dozens more Cassels designed houses including the large but simple Kildare Street / Kildare Place brick houses discussed before.

Since we know that Gardiner’s enterprise on Henrietta Street was a slow burner, the role of Cassels in turning Dublin Georgian shouldn’t be underestimated.