Archer’s Garage
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It is worth comparing the rebuilding of Archers with the Japanese tradition of rebuilding the Shinto Temples. These temples are rebuilt after I think 20 years to the last detail as a means of preserving the building and the skill required for their construction. This buiding is not an old building by any means and its rebuilding should not require descending into pastiche but should be a compenent reinstatment of technologies which if anything have been perfected since its original construction. Comparisons with the restoration of buidlings such as the De La Ware ? Pavillion by Troughtan McAlsan are also relevant for showing what can be done with a buiding of a similar era to bring it back to life.
Ah, we may as well rebuild it. Sure after a few years no body will ever have noticed.
Mores the pity then that such principles were not applied to Georgian Dublin…ie Gardiner Street(look at what’s there now, recently added in the 90’s),Fitzwilliam Street,The Custom House…etc or an even more splendid jewel;’Dresden’…alas all gone.
I remember a lovely little pub that once stood on the corner of Wood Quay, it was called the Irish House.It would be so good to have it reinstated; It was full of charm and wonder.What is the big deal about Georgian Dublin anyway? Perhaps one street of Georgian houses should be preserved as a monument, but the rest you could happily tear down.
Many Georgian houses were built to a poor standard by speculative builders, they are damp, cold, and noisy. Maybe suitable for the town residence of gentry or merchants, they do not make good flats, offices or shops. The ESB got it right.Ouch!that hurt
Dunno bout that. Ye could always get the builder boys around and do a job. I mean they could insulate the attic,install PVC doors and windows,pebble dash or clad the facade etc…..making it nice’n’cosy. Nothing but the best money and taste can buy. Did I say taste?Get a grip Celfi, the ESB HQ is a
*+!kin disaster, its an awful building no matter where you put it, only this time it was plonked in the middle of what was the longest Georgian Streetscape in the world. There is no comparison between the crap that is thrown up today and the houses of Georgian Dublin.Celfi …. me thinks that you misunderstood the concept of irony. Disneyland here we come.
Actually, now that I think of it….
I know that it’s like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, and it’s unfair to the locals [do they care?] BUT: how about NOT re-building the garage?
The original is gone.
Why not leave an ugly empty wasteground nestled on the corner of his hotel? Don’t even clear away the debris.
The everlasting monument to O’Callaghan’s greed and insensitivity now a part of his corner of the block.
A reminder to all foreigners who come to stay there of the kind of business he runs. I bet they wouldn’t come back.
A sacrifice for the future of Irish architecture.
JohnOK, I deserved the slagging for the ESB crack. I agree that it is a truely horrible building. But what is the attraction of the samness of these Georgian terraces? Mitigated to some extent by minor variations (roof height, a doric door column here, and ionic there…), they still present a monotonous face, legacy of the single-zone mentality with which they were created. In this, they are not really that different from the estates of Essex-model suburban semis plaguing the outskirts of Dublin.
They are the magnificent physical remains of an autoctratic, agressive, oppressive colonial regime – so they are culturally invaluable. They whole buzz of their classical universality (all those parallel lines, right angles, disappearing into infinty) is strangely moving – aside from the applique decorated porticos you have an incredibly abstract urban landscape.
Oh God, pardon my ignorance but is the Notorious ESB building the one on a street between Upper Mount Street and Baggot Street? I was saying to somebody last week as I passed a huge pebbledashed building how I quite liked it. He said “John! That’s the ESB thing – the one they mutilated the Goergian Mile for and the ESB have been trying to make up for it ever since…”
I was looking at the back of it I think. The front is bland brown precast concrete isn’t it?
If it’s the same building – I must be ill or something. But then I enjoy O’Connell Bridge House too!
John
Speaking of O’Connell Bridge House, does anyone have any pictures of what its going to look like when the refurbishment? It looks like its just getting cheap new windows and the scaffolding will be up for quite a while.
Hey Celfi, can you name any housing development ( public or private ) which has been added to inner city Dublin since the times of Georgina that possess the same qualities of scale,uniformity,detailing, modest grandeur and offering to the occupants generous living space.
The rubbishy Disneysque Georgian pastiche replacement on Gardiner Street is surely a ‘No No’ as well as it’s neighbouring ‘Sociopathic Chambers’.(Luke Gardiner Weeps).The maximum punishment Noel O’Callaghan can suffer for the demolition of Archer’s Garage is an IR£1m fine and/or imprisonment for up to 1 year. I propose that, if he turns out to be stringing the public along on his promise, that he should receive both of these penalties. I also propose that the only planning permission that should be granted for the site (even that on which the garage did not formerly stand on) would be for the reinstatement of the garage itself. He would eventually be forced to either rebuild the garage or sell the site. Then the Corporation should buy it and rebuild the garage as a monument to Deirdre Kelly who died before her time not so long ago. This matter was one of the last she ever spoke on. I also think that the maximum fine should be raised much higher than IR£1m, because developers stand to earn much more than that if they can plunder the city as they like. Plus, no legislation is actually worded so that people who illegally demolish buildings (listed or unlisted) have to rebuild it.
Rather than just bitch about it here, can anyone suggest anything positive we could do to actually get something done. Or at least find out why nothing continues to happen. What department in the Corpo is responsible?
I pass the site every morning on my way to work and this is really starting to piss me off.
Fergus,
if you were eagle eyed you may have noticed on passing the site a new site notice for another office block application on the site. With this being the case it seems increasingly unlikely that a meaningful start will take place o the rebuilding of Archers in May. The Corpo’s and the Public efforts to have the garage rebuilt are being treated with contempt.I heard that a 4 storey (plus penthouse) office office development with car park was going there.
Eh….No!
Weve been so blind/foolish.
I now see the answer to my own question asking if there is anything positive we could do instead of just bitching about it.
If we could have a whip round among th regular contributers on here would we get enugh to fill a plastic bag with £20 notes ? Then we’d be able to get something done.
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