Re: Re: what now for Irish Times D’olier Street buildings?

Before

…and, er, After

Dear oh dear.

The iconic curved corner, Before and After.

The occasional spalled brick and parts of decayed pointing were repaired with a yellow mortar.

A beautiful ivory has been chosen for the sashes, most of which are reproduction. Only the very occasional original sash with glass survives.

As can be seen, a system of secondary glazing has been installed, whereby what appears to be an aluminium frame with a central horizontal glazing bar divides the inner window into two separate casements that open inwards. Very effective when one doesn’t have shutter boxes, but alas unacceptable that their street face is white. It should be black or grey. This is easily done with modern aluminium products and should have been insisted upon in a prestige terrace such as this.

One of the distinctive and little known features of this WSC terrace is that the attic level is principally a dummy storey. All of the squat attic windows are consumed to the rear by their roofs, presumably on account of the shortfall in funding the WSC experienced in the opening years of the 19th century. They wanted to economise while keeping up appearances. And standards – which is more than can be said of today. All of the attic windows, with the exception of the curved end where an apartment occupies the attic floor, have been fitted with horrendous mirror glass! An entirely unacceptable state of affairs.

How on earth was this permitted by DCC?

Shocking stuff. In all honesty, is there anything DCC does not deem as being up to standard? Does it even have standards?

In the case of the red brick houses, not even the rubbishy modern casement windows with mirrored glass were extracted!

The vast majority of the upper floors are offices. There are four small apartments in the entire complex, all located on the corner of D’Olier Street and Fleet Street in the curved corner. Each is of two bedrooms, with a kitchen-cum-living room where one is expected to dine at a breakfast bar if space in the dinky ‘living room space’ is to be preserved. What a crying shame in such fine buildings.

Around the back and, well, I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on here. Evidently never resolved from the outset in the early 1800s, or compromised over the years through addition and modification, this area, in spite of its historic fabric, required more serious intervention to sort it out. But it wasn’t.

As seen to the left above, a former doorway infilled with mismatched brick was left untreated, and appalling grey ruled pointing pasted over the whole lot. What an unholy mess.

The Wide Streets Commissioners would be rolling in their graves at this standard of finish fronting a prominent public space.

Indeed, this odd kink in the street is now left without proper form or function. Even a nice seat for the patrons for the 150 bus would be a simple, useful and elegant gesture.