Re: Re: What is this building – Portland Row, Dublin

The grim Adam’s family-like state of the house as of a couple of years ago.

I’ve a lovely watercolour of the house and grounds shortly after completion in one of those fusty aul books from the 1940s, where the new-fangled coloured plates have the suspicious appearance of being painstakingly pasted in by hand, but can’t find it now tsk.

Here’s some grim photographic imagery instead. This one appears to date to the late 19th century when it was probably a post office depot.

And again in the early/mid 20th century.

© Courtauld Institute of Art

The house of course is famous for being distinctly gawky in proportions, with a bizarrely tall piano nobile fitted with windows so narrow and densely clustered as to make the house appear to be on the verge of toppling over.

For once, the son out-maneovered the father when it came to the architect, Richard Johnston. His characteristic gawkiness can also be seen at the Gate Theatre/Assembly Rooms complex on Parnell Square (glad to see Christine Casey picks up the same point ;)).

A certain domesticity was applied to his buildings in their use of expansive fenestration, including his former Daly’s Club on College Green. Ironically, big houses like Aldborough should look as least domestic as they possibly can. The dropping of the first floor windows of Tyrone House in the early 19th century is also characteristic of this trend.

The stairwell of Aldborough once featured enormous wall paintings so vulgar as to make it almost a relief that they have long since been removed. Still, white elephants two centuries on are always curiosities in their own right, so it’s a shame more of the original interior scheme of this house did not survive the batterings of institutional use. Still, enough remains for it to be pieced back together again.