Re: Re: Liberty Hall

@GrahamH wrote:

Wow – interesting view shamrockmetro. The Custom House looks so, well, Venetian! Lazily sunning itself along the waters’ edge. Why do I get the impression it’s larger-scaled than it should be though?

Psssing Liberty Hall this evening was the first time it really stood out to me as a Sixties building. Being so familar, it’s easy just to accept it as ‘Liberty Hall’ rather than ‘1960’s skyscraper’, which the latter is to any outside observer. Very few other cities have a singular lack of tall buildings in their centre with a distinctive exception of 1960’s design relative to the impact that Liberty Hall has on the small skyline of Dublin. It’s so clearly of it’s time that it must be a joy to stumble upon for the first time, and fully restored we ought to be able to appreciate that too.

Interpreting it in that way makes you see it in an entirely different light, and it becomes a fascinating piece of built heritage as much as all the usual suspects. In fact, people should make an effort to go out and have a good look at with this in mind – I don’t think we’ve quite copped on to the fact that there’s a 17-storey 1960’s tower slap bang in the middle of Dublin! What a freak development, and equally what a freak survivor.

Let’s list this building, and look back in twenty years time when the city is liberally peppered with mediocre 32-storey buildings and be able to still look up at the prototype, the original. And there’s little doubt in my mind that it will be the only tower that people will hold a true affection for.

What an absolutely brilliant post!