Anne Street South

@phil wrote:

Also, does anyone know anything about the former Ball Room on the street ?
Phil

Phil, it was not really a ballroom it was called McGonigles and was a venue that could be hired up to 1995 when it became the ‘System’ nightclub and was closed due to the type of client it was attracting.

@phil wrote:

Thanks for that. It was referred to as the Ballroom in the planning application. Thanks for clarifying it for me. Phil

I suppose it would have been a ballroom at one time, but when the System opened they gutted the place and put in new floors and ceiling finishes etc. You could do that sort of thing 10 years ago without needing planning consent.

As far as i know the legal definition for a protected structure includes its curtilage, and even though this is not well defined it probably means that the facade, whatever is left of the building and attending grounds are all protected in this case. It is also possible to protect part of a structure. Check out the planning and development act for confirmation

@Thomond Park wrote:

Phil, it was not really a ballroom it was called McGonigles and was a venue that could be hired up to 1995 when it became the ‘System’ nightclub and was closed due to the type of client it was attracting.

But prior to it being McGonigals it was the “Crystal” Ballroom, sort of a showband hang-out

10/12/2006

One of the last mass-assembled sites in the city has finally begun to give something back to the city with the restoration of a terrace of buildings, or more specifically a facade retention, on South Anne Street.

Apparently the site assembly – of which this terrace is only one part – was begun 18 years ago by developer Paddy McKillen. This is what we have been presented with for many years, within yards of Grafton Street.

http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com

This is today.

These images were taken a few months ago, and most of the units have since been filled. The class of tenant is quite niche in character, in line with a Sunday Business Post article which cited the developers as being extremely particular as to who leased their outlets. London jewellers Links now occupy a unit to the extreme right, along with various fashion stores. The standard of window display along here as a result is imaginative and very striking.

Most Victorian/Edwardian shopfronts have been retained.

And look exceedingly elegant in a black eggshell finish.

Beautiful. The curved glass is very striking.

Also a muted use of signage.

Unfortunately I don’t think the contemporary fronts work nearly as well – clumsy and flat, and stuck-on in appearance.

An opportunity lost for contemporary to make its mark.

The brickwork has been cleaned, tuck-pointed and all windows presumably (accurate) reproductions – painted in SHOCK dark grey:

The stock brick in the upper course however looks very strange, and not very appealing. Perhaps this was inserted when the red brick was so dirty as the only type of brick that would match.

The properties closest to Grafton Street are entirely stock brick.

These have since been occupied by Links.

The offices upstairs are presumably accessed via this fine new entrance fa

Its the classic scenario Graham where buildings simply must adapt or die. The fact is that the whole area (soon to be an ACA and Special Planning Control Area of course) requires site consolidation while at the same time maintaining the historic character and the stock of beautiful period buildings. I think, on balance, the above is a positive outcome. The curved glass shopfronts look exquisite…. they make you want to look inside. Certainly contrast with the new Dunnes Stores across on Henry Street (subject of another post by you). Its quite possible to have a strong street presence and a proportionate shopfront.

Really positive outcome; I spoke to one of the developers consultants about this scheme 3 years ago and the consultant was very sceptical that the numbers would stack up post completion. They have I hope as this should be a model as to how streets such as the Mercer St end of South William and whats left of Lower Stephen Street could go.

Similar to my comments on the Grafton Street 21st Century thread I believe that devlopments like this will cement the future of Grafton Street and without getting too carried away it is fair to say that Dublin retail is in rude health and that the exodus to streets such as Wicklow Street, South Anne Street and Duke St mirror what has happened in most other developed retail markets such as Bond St / Oxford Street.

Well done

I think the boxes on top are terrible, they completely ruin the view of this facade from lemon street, no effort has been made with them, according to the pervasive and weird convention that anything set back is invisible.

I see you’ve taken to bringing a bodyguard with you on your wanderings now, Graham.:)

I agree, notjim- invisible from the street on which the buildings stand does not equal invisible from the wider area. That excrescence really is terrible.

Having said that, I think the job is pretty good all round- the quality of the workmanship certainly looks to be a couple of notches above the usual.

Whether the ‘facadism’ approach was correct or not, I still haven’t made up my mind. I don’t remember whether the buildings were fairly intact before the developer got his hands on them, or if the damage had already been done. Must go and have a closer look.

The offices and the brasserie Venu (in the basement) are accessed from the side area Graham as you presumed

Thanks for that jdivision. The ground floor around there does look decidedly ancillary in nature, hence the hesitancy earlier – hardly the most inviting of entrances is it? And the mock-Victorian doorcase is embarrassingly poor. At least go full-on contemporary if you can’t be bothered doing a decent restoration or reproduction.

I see where you’re coming from on this Phil – really :). For example part of the M&S terrace on Duke Street makes me cringe every time I pass it by; the buildings’ silly, brightly painted facades almost deliberately invoking the rage of the conservationist – drawing one’s eye to their falseness, and playing tongue-in-cheek on the notion of a depthless, charade city, where commerce utilises historic stock for purely marketing ends.

The issue here really boils down to the question of how development takes place: over what length of time, and to what extent, i.e. is it more ‘honest’ when a terrace of buildings organically merges and changes use over say ten or twenty years, rather than a strategically planned alteration/demolition to the substructure?

Probably the best test of this question would be the former The Irish Times offices on D’Olier Street – a terrace of Georgian buildings progressively merged over the best part of a century, and into what has to be said to be decidedly mediocre and rather dingy accommodation which is essentially unworkable in the modern world for office use. So is this state of affairs more ‘honest’ than say if the substructure had been rebuilt to modern standards (as indeed some of it was in the 1950s)? It’s a very tough call to make – I’m not sure I know the answer.

Indeed had these units not been merged and were still single properties, they’d almost be unworkable for the residential units currently proposed, given access problems to each. Ironically, the merging of the properties has made them more usable in the modern world for a traditional use (residential), than had they remained as the Wide Streets Commission designed with individual proprietor’s accommodation overhead.

Or is say Brown Thomas/Switzers more ‘true to form’ because of its relatively modest incremental development, in spite of its now thoroughly modern interior?

I do agree that as far as is practicable, older buildings ought to be protected from what’s often termed ‘mega-structural’ developments like these – especially if they have original interiors intact, however modest. Albeit a rather extreme case, Greenes bookshop is a good example of how it’s possible to make use of traditional interiors in a retail environment. I’m sure there’s more workable, chic examples I can’t think of off-hand! In the South Anne Street case it’s impossible for us to assess the merits of the scheme given we know little of what was there before. It is only in that respect I think it is a job well done – what can be presently observed.

I was in those buildings before they were demolished. To be honest they were pretty dank, rotten and poky inside, and of no great character. I think facade retention was the only way forward in this case.

D’you not think the brick facade was worth keeping for its contribution to the area?

I think the facade looks really well and International experience dictates that well restored period facades with modern fit outs provide the most appropriate exterior for extracting a premium for luxury goods such as clothes, shoes and lifestyle accessories.

The loss to the developer are the upper floors which would have yielded a much higher office rent if done in a more contemporary cladding but I am in no doubt that a higher rent would not have been secured with a modern facade unless it was so contemporary that it would have been damaging in planning terms to the streetscape.

Fair comment and in my opinion no it shouldn’t if the market dictated in isolation there would be no heritage as at various points in the fashion cycle modern is in to the exclusion of all other styles; Thankfully in this heritage does have a value and in this case this developer got it spot on in my opinion by both maximising value in a tight planning context i.e. this is close to Grafton Street and the remainder of the street is not devoid of heritage and by executing the scheme to make the exterior look very well by restoring to a high standard in terms of finishes.

In short he targetted high end retail and used heritage to do it by offering retailers a similar building stock to what one expects in London or continental cities.

Unfortunately many others lack this vision and can only think in terms of mass market and passing price per square metre for bog standard spec.

Would you prefer the interior to be kept with only minimum invervention? or the whole lot removed and started anew?

In this case

It must be noted that there is a world of difference between the modest, sensitive approach taken here, and the overtly facadist route adopted all over the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, where elaborate hotel, bank and department store elevations were retained as cloaks for large office developments.

By contrast in this instance, the buildings by and large retain their original uses: independent shop units as first built remain intact, original shopfronts still stand in situ, some stores traditionally pierce upwards to the first floor, and the modest high spec offices upstairs correlate with the city-wide pattern of usage for upper floors of modest buildings like these.

Given this terrace may not have contained anything or little of note inside as Devin suggests, what has been carried out, I think, is an honest and well-intentioned reinvigoration of a collection of buildings that forms a large chunk of a traditional Dublin streetscape.
Yes, the construction process was brazenly facadist, but the end product is not, relative to what we usually associate with this form of development. Coupled with the retention of the buildings closest to Grafton Street, and a largely conserved usage overall, this is a project that is at least in the upper echelons of the facadist concept.

It is well executed and it is true that a lot of the facade retentions have been a travesty for example O’Callaghans development of the Davenport Hotel where a very fine church interior went up in smoke to be replaced by a bog standard hotel arrangment covered in plush carpets to make it look the 4 star business hotel that it became.

What needs to be remembered about buildings like these are that they were speculatively built and disinvested for close to 100 years with the most insensitive replacements made between 1930 and 1970 before the plan became to allow them to fall down so that modern offices could replace them.

Comparing the result on this and the loss of the 4 Georgians on Essex Quay that went on to become the bookend building in the early 1990’s shows just how much progress has been made. From a position of loss now at least some developers are going the extra length to preserve the appearance of a historically intact streetscape whilst blending some contemporary features in.

It is agreed that many facade retentions done in the 1980s and early 1990s were a travesty with many important interiors lost but it is now felt that the corner has been turned particularly in Central London where it is not uncommon for developers to be required to fund the restoration of neighbouring buildings such as churchs or guild halls which are not even part of their sites. Having said that steady demand even at rents of

Given the type of contemporary retail infill that tends to be built in this area I have to say I am relieved that the existing building lines were maintained. Had another developer had this one probably would have seen HKR or ARA producing something like the Arnotts proposal which would have usurped the place of St Annes in the architectural hierarchy on the basis of massing.

Or dross would have emerged like the units on the other side of the street that form part of Hibernian Way scheme and that SCD were unable to shift for 2 years.

This scheme is best result for me as it harnessed the quality of the buildings exteriors and proves that demolition of borderline heritage is not always the obvious outcome.

@PVC King wrote:

I have to say I am relieved that the existing building lines were maintained.

You mean the height lines? “Building line” refers to the position of the building in relation to the street.

I generally use the expression footprint for the extent of a building in terms of coverage; whilst I use the expression building lines for height and mass. I don’t doubt that you are correct that the technically correct term is height line.

The main thing was that neither was changed to the detriment of the streetscape.