Be quiet Mr Byrne

Can someone post the link to radio/television (?) interview in question?

Byrne lashes out at top building
http://ireland.archiseek.com/news/2008/000176.html

Architect slams Byrne for being ‘out of touch’
http://ireland.archiseek.com/news/2008/000177.html

Well he’s not alone in not liking it to be honest

Its from last Saturday’s (June 21, 2008) edition of Converstions with Eamonn Dunphy on RTÉ Radio 1.

His tirade is triggered by Dunphy’s question, “Gabriel, will you ever come back to live in Ireland…permanently?” Byrne then likens himself to Oisín returning from Tír na n-Óg before remarking on Merrion Row.

http://www.rte.ie/arts/2008/0621/conversationswitheamondunphy.html

Part 3 of the programme, 6 min 50 s in.

How irritating on a scale of 1-10 is Gabriel Byrne’s slamming of Grafton’s Dept of Finance scheme?
I am going for 20.

I am sorry to say, that has irritates me. And I give you a 20 out of 10 for it. Mr Byrne has every right to give out and he’s right.

Firstly I wish to say that I do like the design of this building. However the problem for me is that it is so out of place with its surroundings. Now if the colour of this building was close to red brick which is in the neighbouring buildings, the it wouldn’t look so odd.

And this quickly bring me to a major gripe I have with many new buildings in Dublin. Architects seem to me to have either no little or no consideration or respect for their designs within its surroundings. And I’ll go as far to say that to me, these designs seem to go out of their way to stand out.

I’ve said it before on another thread a while ago, that this building is more suitable for somewhere like Grand Canal Docks or somewhere where there is new development. But not Baggot Street just off Stephens Green.

But I suppose it is unfair for me to lay the blame on the architect. The blame really should be on the city councillors who seem to have no respect for how their city looks.

Anyone care to direct him to either Henrietta St corner or Robocop beside City Hall?

Maybe they’re not quite as close to the Shelbourne… :p

He said similar comments about the modern (1970s) buildings in UCD the last time he was in Dublin.

Gabriel Byrne is entitled to his opinion but it is a backward stagnant view, particularly from someone you would expect to be ‘cultured’. it would be interesting to hear what he would like to have gone up there. I think he is inferring that some sort of mock-georigian thing would have been more suitable.

there was no mention of that po-mo monstrosity the other side of the Hugenot site that hosues the sony centre and throws a blank facade up against it waiting for someone to build over the cemetary. the grafton building is one of the finest additions to the cityscape in recent memory and ensures that the hugenot site cannot be built on by virtue of its fenestration to the side. a suitably protective gesture from a government institution. the gates are a blip on an otherwise immaculatly handled exterior, but i think they are bedding in a bit.

I would put this building and elmpark up as positive markers of what we have done in the tiger years and they both have lifted the bar for building culture in Ireland.

Back in 2000 Gabriel Byrne played Benjamin Madigan, a successful, New York-based architect with an Oirish accent, in Madigan Men, a short-lived comedy on ABC from the Sex in the City stable. Here’s a picture of Byrne, the architect, in his studio (no CAD, just a Mayline in front of him!), looking rather pleased about some dodgy plan on a crumpled scrap of paper. http://www.cinemind.com/MadiganMen/gb.html :p

It might be worth Gaybo`s time to take a constitutional as far as the Canal where he can take in the magnificence of the new Grand Parade development.

Talk about lost opportuinities…. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

quality link there.

ahh the rambling ad hoc projections of a middle-class american house plan. dont forget the picket fence gabriel

What an awful series that was. As cringe-inducing and predictable as these comments.

When you say ‘these comments’, which ones are you referring to? GB’s, or this thread?

@what? wrote:

there was no mention of that po-mo monstrosity the other side of the Hugenot site that hosues the sony centre and throws a blank facade up against it waiting for someone to build over the cemetary. the grafton building is one of the finest additions to the cityscape in recent memory and ensures that the hugenot site cannot be built on by virtue of its fenestration to the side. a suitably protective gesture from a government institution.

I saw this argument trotted out during the recent awards, and to me it’s a red herring. As I said at the time, in the thread on this building, what bothers me about it is the way it treats the graveyard as an amenity space, as if it’s there for the benefit of the users of the building. I know that the trustees of the graveyard gave their consent, but to think that the best way to protect the graveyard is to treat it as a nice garden is borderline offensive. It must be pretty unusual to have a graveyard in the city centre, more unusual that it’s a Huguenot one. I would think the fact that it’s the final resting place of people, particularly people persecuted elsewhere (hence their existence here at all), should trump all other considerations. Does it really need a building to come to its rescue?* What a damning indictment.

Or, as I suspect, did the architects/client just want to maximise development on the site, and therefore use the ‘Saviours Of The City’ stance as a cloak of active citizenship? I ain’t falling for it, folks.

*No, it doesn’t. What it needs is sympathetic neighbours.

@hutton wrote:

Anyone care to direct him to either Henrietta St corner or Robocop beside City Hall?

Haha, very good.

@fergalr wrote:

Haha, very good.

Many thanks, but unfortunately all too true 😉

Agreed re the Department of Finance. As if the second most famous graveyard in the city needs protection from being built over in the 21st century. As mentioned at length previously, I find the fenestration gratuitious to the side elevation, and not to mention at odds with the stoical front facing Merrion Row. The two facades do not gel successfully.

Indeed the stern front addressing the street merely serves to reinforce what should have been overlooking the graveyard, and the inappropriateness of what was executed.

As such, it is a beautifully crafted building, that both delights and frustrates in equal measure.

@ctesiphon wrote:

…………….. It must be pretty unusual to have a graveyard in the city centre, more unusual that it’s a Huguenot one. ………..

Not really…..in Mary St., Dublin for one, several in London, quite a few in Paris (e.g. rue de Fauubourg St Honore, Temple, etc.) and in NYC Trinity Church at the top of Wall St.comes to mind. Robert Fulton is buried therehttp://www.trinitywallstreet.org/history/content/churchyard/1d_south/?area_id=20&id=80&action=search&people_id=126
Agree with your gist, though, always did seem a bit “off ” to use a tombstone slab as a lunchtime picnic table.
K.

Fair point- that post was dashed off in a slight hurry. I suppose I meant graveyards that retain their graveyard form, and specifically in the Irish context. The Mary Street one was reordered long before that awful ‘urban beach’ concept (and prize winner, if I’m not mistaken), with the headstones moved to the southern end (that’s the one, right?), and the graves around Christchurch are so worn that you wouldn’t know they once carried text.

ah if it is only in an Irish context there is the St Nick’s graveyard in Galway and isn’t there a Hugenot graveyard in Cork?