Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’
@gunter wrote:
Dormers and gables seem to have been mutually exclusive design elements at this time and in Dublin I think dormers are more usually associated with institutional buildings [RHK, Old Custom House, Library Square, Trinity etc.] than domestic streetscape buildings
Yes, I know dormers were mainly on the public buildings, but they are there in the smaller buildings too. And there’s the Fownes Street terrace, which while maybe not the original treatment illustrates the idea of dormers in an early terrace.
It’s important to air other factors and possibilities anyway, so that your visions and theories are not just let run riot across the thread ]The reason that I suspect no. 44 was originally also a twin-Billy is again the particular window arrangement that you’ve been drawing attention to.[/QUOTE]I’m not talking about different numbers of bays on floors – none of the examples I gave have that. I’m talking about random asymmetry, which may indicate that an amount of the gabled architecture here was rather half-baked and second hand. So don’t be using me to take the conversation off in your own direction again.
@gunter wrote:
The pattern of three large windows on the first floor and four narrower windows on the second floor, is the same as we saw at 34 Molesworth St. and 32 Usher’s quay
The records of those buildings and 44 Stephen’s Green showing 3 bays up to first floor level and 4 bays above that are most probably late 18th century alterations to the lower half of the building to keep up with the times and get better proportions for the first-floor front room in particular – in the same way as 3-bay gabled buildings are frequently seen with a 2-bay first floor. No building, Georgian or pre-Georgian, would be conceived with such an unsatisfactory, clumsy principal elevation. You can walk for miles past gabled buildings in cities on the continent and not see this. Your disparaging imputations of ‘rigid and restrictive’ grid elevations to Georgian doctrine are thus unfounded.
A matching pair of gables can be very elegant. I can see why you’re attracted to the idea – Dutch example here – but when you go below a certain scale of house it’s just not a runner. It generally wouldn’t have been done on anything less than four bays (not including 3 bay houses that were earlier 4 bays). 41 Stephen’s Green is very borderline, scale wise. I’m not convinced it was twin gabled, despite your usual hard sell.
