Re: Re: Liberty Hall

Has a consensus emerged on whether Liberty Hall should go at all?

Sounds like a good idea for an archiseek poll?

I’d be very strongly against getting rid of it at this stage but it certainly needs to be refreshed – preferably restored to it’s original “transparent” form. Whatever your opinions on it, it’s unarguably a Dublin icon and I’m not in favour of iconoclasm. It’s not like we have a large heritage of interesting buildings from that era.

Given its iconic status, you’d imagine that there would be robust arguments for it’s removal in terms of aesthetics. Going on the contents of this thread, all I can find are expressions of personal dislike without any attempt to justify the dislike.

One of the arguments for its replacement amusingly acknowledges its status; paraphrasing from memory: “we want to replace it with something that will acquire similar iconic status after 40 years”. So Liberty Hall is built and is viewed with wonder by Dubliners but shortly afterwards becomes the building everyone loves to say they hate. Then after 30 years of being hated, just as its iconic status is becoming established, knock it down and replace it with a building which will be hated for 40 years before it reaches the status of the current building. :rolleyes:

Especially in it “transparent” form, the building is quite “light” and elegant. The contrast with O’Connell Bridge House is stark and I wouldn’t have any problem with the removal of the latter. Since the primary reason for knocking it is to increase the floor area, its replacement is guaranteed to be heavier and bulkier.

I remember about 10 or 15 years ago trying to argue with friends that what Dublin needed was a SECOND liberty hall across the river on Tara Street. 😀 The idea appealed to my contrarian nature given that at the time expressing hatred of Liberty Hall was even more popular than it is now.