Bridges & Boardwalks
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If you get a chance paul, point that camera of yours down to the building, at the pedestrian crossing from teh new ped bridge.
I have visions of ‘John Wayne’ lasso-ing one of those columns some day and allowing his horse to give it a good thug, wild west fashion.
Worst ‘muck’ design I have seen in a while, and yet another obviously statement, that architectural technologists/tossers in DCC are still doing the architecture all along dublin’s quays.
Well so much for the idea of buying a good digital camera to record my impressions of what I experience in architecture! Even though they can be useful for some kind of record, or places abroad etc, etc.
Ya know what guys, I am going to level with you all straight up here – and admit, that I have loads more brushing up to do on my discursive abilities and skills, compared to much of the fine discussion and debaters here at Archiseek. It has always been my biggest single reason for failure at various endeavours related to architecture. So good discursive abilities are key to sucess in most lines of work I think.
However, I think I have a pretty keen eye when it comes to smelling a real turkey in real world architecture, and you cannot actually tell from the above images what I am talking about. In some odd way, those photographs actually make the thing look good! Yet, when I walk around and through that area of town, I know deep down the thing is a complete ‘kick for touch’ in terms of architectural design. I have spoken here in support of the new rendering technologies available to architects – which produce photographic images.
But whoever, doesn’t believe me should actually go and visit this place in question. It is a clear example of where the developer produced maybe a couple of nice 3DS VIZ images, that looked okay, and decided well let’s just do it. And that is the whole point, looking at those images, the development looks fine. But in reality, you just know it isn’t, strange. So people don’t judge how bad the development really is, just by those photographs – rather go and experience it and report back please.
Its both a good development and bad architecture. It opens up a new route and uses the land efficently but the architecture sucks donkey balls. The bottom picture shows the horrendous join of the new building to the old facade which is terribly crude. Recessing the shopfront behind the original facade is badly thought out – it now provides a great public urinal. And as for the tower….
It goes way beyond sucking any balls at this stage in Ireland Paul, it passed that stage back around 1999/00 as I recall correctly. Think of dentists when they qualify usually go to some other country for a while and work at very cheap rates in order to ‘get practice’. (I.e. Get all the real baddies out of their system) While some poor guy over in unemployment England is left holding his jaw for the rest of his life. This is an example of that in architecture.
The boss architects in this country should begin realising this, and take their heads out of their BMW catalogues and golfing magazines long enough, just to see what their latest recruit from Eastern Europe is doing with his/her cracked copy of 3DS MAX. :)And perhaps give a job to someone like myself, who cannot afford to make these kinds of balls jobs in the same country that I wish to live/work in.
I can put up with the river side, it’s not that offensive. However what about the other side of this development , on Abbey street. It is the 1960s concrete look , so ugly.
The path for pedestrians should be wide, instead it feels closed in with a concrete overhang and obstructed by large concrete pillars. What a pityGenevieve
Anyone care to do the Group 91 bridge anecdote here? I am tired of typing. 🙂
Anyhow, I will just cross link this here:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2744
Carlisle Pier thread.
Now it just came to me what these new kiosks resemble.
Huge scaled up versions of the huts for the car park attendants at BCP car parks in the UK.
Isn’t the Abbey St. side actually a 60’s building called Chapter House? Also bear in mind that the extremely bleak Wast facing wall is soon to be covered up by whatever CIE is building on its former depot.
Chapter House was only completed last year. Is it all part of the one development. I have to be honest and say that I dont really find this scheme as awful as the rest of the thread. I agree its hardly inspiring architecture but then we never really see alot of that these days do we.
Capel Ste is another example. Theres another bland and boring box being constructed on the corner of Marys Abbey and Capel and another planned for opposite. Together they will both dramatically chnage the appearance of a virtaul intact Victorian commercial street. They are completely inapproriate.
Capel St is great. It has hung on in there despite the death of streets and shops like these in 1980s. All it needs is some judicious urban planning and it could become a great thoroughfare again.
Okay. Good observation, to look at what is going on in the whole general area. Still that Group 91 Poddle Bridge and Jervis Street route, was about ‘that whole general area’ too. This DCC bridge and route it has now burrowed through a pile of developer’s rubbish is a sad, sad compromise – where does that little alley lead to anyway? How does it improve pedestrian flow, by landing you straight outside a big blank wall elevation of the Jervis Centre?
I mean, if the Poddle bridge location, had been used instead for a new pedestrian bridge, it would have brought in the meeting house square in Temple Bar, and the whole of Jervis St leading up as far as Parnell st, etc into the picture of people movement in Dublin city centre. Pull out that OS map and have a look if you don’t believe me.
The new pedestrian bridge which DCC done, in defiance of Group 91 and Temple Bar properties is just in a bad location whichever way you look at it.
I hate, that ‘zig-zag’ maneuvre you have to make, having crossed the new ped bridge, to get onto the Jervis St, direct route up as far as Henry St, Parnell st. That count-down clock is supposed to be so helpful, but It is really just a waste of money building that new pedestrian bridge where they built it.
Just a very, very sad example of DCC trying to ascert whatever authority they think they have, over the Temple Bar thing, which they weren’t part of.
The fact that DCC burrowed through a developer scheme, to make some gesture towards the urban theme, doesn’t change one thing I am sorry. And what is going on over in Capel St, is just another typical Archiseek, lets do aesthetic ping-pong.
So how many times, is this now, I have pointed out DCC lack of any clue in anything to do with open space or pedestrian movement?
I’ve tried to point out this before about those new buildings beside millen bridge, they’re quayfront GRAIN, and they work well as grain, whereas the fake Georgians at the corner of Jervis Street dont work as grain cos theyre fake and the finish is bad. Nor do the fakes on Bachelors Walk (designed in-house by the council).
LOL! 🙂
Respectfully, I am too long at this game to get worried with arguments as weak as that. I don’t have to even agree with an argument, to enjoy it – just as long as it interests me.
With all due respect, come back when you have something more to offer. My suggestion, would be to read my post carefully again, examine the situation in question, and carefully try and present an argument that would contradict what I have argued.
That would be interesting at least. The above response just isn’t, sorry. To tell you the truth, I find it difficult myself to get up off my behind, and look at things – but it is always worth it.
A book you might be able to dig up in Boton Street Library or someplace is Edmund N. Bacon, Design of Cities – a good reference to build up a decent response around. I haven’t even read much of it myself, but the pictures in it are still worth a hour or two.
In my general posting or just this post specifically.
Because if the problem, is with my posting in general, then I might agree with you. In fact, I might even do something about it.
But in the case of this post specifically, all I can offer is that, I don’t take any prisoners – but I have followed the Poddle Bridge and Aftermath saga since the mid nineties.
So I can assure you, you are not talking to someone who is up their own arse, or any place else in regards to this issue.
BTW, I have mentioned now and again, that I like the boardwalks. At least they got the positioning of them correct, and that is why they perform such a crucial function now.
You are really just being immature – if the only argument you could come up with, was that attempt, respectfully.
Back to the kiosks, my god those kiosks on Grattan bridge are absolutely awful! They look like stationary Luas cars with the roundy edges knocked off that could easily have been bought in a portaloo catalogue. Also how do they relate to the already primitive seating that is in place, with their pseudo celtic ‘windbreakers?’ I thought those seats were a temporary arrangement and the new kiosks would be attached or connected in some masterstroke, but what the crap?
Nobody who has slagged off those buildings beside Millen bridge has said exactly why they think they’re crap, or even what they think might look good there instead. They wern’t designed by DCC in-house, or an east-european architect. It was an Irish architect, George Morris.
No garethace, you do submit interesting posts. Telling somebody to reread your own posts and your tone in that post is what I was referring to.
The original alignment for the pedestrian bridge (Jervis Street/Meeting House Square) would indeed have created much greater connectivity (sorry about the pretentious word), but I’d prefer the Howley Harrington bridge design any day to the Group 91 bridge, which was an architectural conceit (does an “all hail group 91” thing exist on on this site???).
Millenium bridge is also uncomfortably close to ha’penny bridge – the original bridge site would have been that bit further away.
Given that it’s there now, they should at least make the most of the Eustace St/Millenium Walk axis by putting a sign on the blank wall of the Jervis Centre that can be read from across the Liffey, so as to get more people to walk down it.
Another entrance to the Jervis Centre where Millen Walk comes out would be daft given that there’s one at the nearby corner. And Dixon’s would have to lose some floorspace – so unless that was agreed in their lease……
StephenC, with reference to Capel Street, DCC would have us believe that the “bland and boring box” on the corner of Mary’s Abbey and “another planned for opposite” ARE the “judicious urban planning” that will make it a great thoroughfare again!!
I can put up with the river side, it’s not that offensive. However what about the other side of this development , on Abbey street. It is the 1960s concrete look , so ugly
Two different developers Quartier Bloom (sout of Great Strand Street) – Wallace, Chapel House et al (North of Great Strand Street) – Danninger (Zoe)
I don’t think this development is as bad as is made out either.
Ok, it’s standard stuff, using standard materials, but it isn’t cringe inducing to look at it.
There are of course bad elements to it, the red-bricked part attached to the tower is very cluttered and messy near the ground floor, and there’s more clutter on the other building where the ‘new meets the old’, with messy windows squeezed in at the top on the side.And the join with the new stone and the brickwork should not have been made on the quay facade.
The lack of windows in the old building is really awful, and clearly looks it in that pic from earlier, it looks derelict.I think what the problem with it is, and perhaps the problem you have with it Brian, is that it is a landmark site, clearly noticable, and deserves better than the mundane.
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