Re: Re: Irish say no to PVC windows

In Cork, Grants on Patrick’s Street was also built with slim line steel windows in the 1920s.

While one of the most elegant uses of that period was surely Manfield Chambers on Lower O’Connell Street in Dublin, with its gracious pivoting casements still surviving on some of the floors from c.1917-18, now also featuring secondary timber-framed glazing.

Alas the uppermost steels, in a similar style to those below, were removed around the 1970s.

More survive across the road from 1920.

The largest use of them, possibly in the country at that time for a commercial application, was in the rebuilding the Gresham Hotel c.1926-29. Alas none but the magnificent ground floor frames survive today, the upper floors having been replaced with aluminium about thirty years ago.

What grand survivors – thankfully they simply would have been too expensive to replace, and with little practical gain being in a public area.

The top-opening lights are barely noticable, while they also feature beautiful hot-rolled latches.

Unbelieveably they seem to have been painted blue at one stage!

Charming diminutive rectangles also survive to either end of the main façade.