Building on Sean McDermott St.

The NEIC IAP, prepared by Dublin City Council, identified the area around the existing church on Sean McDermott Street as a flagship site for re-development of Community based facilities. As part of the masterplan a need for a new Community Complex was identified to upgrade and further develop existing community based Projects and activities such as the Lourdes Youth and Community Services, the Neighbourhood Youth Project and the Adventure Sports Project, all of which are based in the existing Ruthland St. School and the adjoining School-on-Stilts.The overall proposal is to relocate the above existing groups and their activities in new purpose-built accommodation arising out of an extensive consultation and design process with each of the groups. The proposed Community Complex is a three/four storey building, being 2998sqm in overall floor area. Each user group is provided with its separate entrance so as to create its own identity within the complex and to enable them to relate individually to the proposed surrounding re-development of the overall area. In addition it is proposed to include a separate Creche facility for 35 children at ground level for Dublin City Council. An enclosed hard surface / external area is to be provided between the Church and the proposed building.

What the developers done here is appalling! And the glass block proposal is so fucking awful! Probably think that they are doing what Sam Stephenson appallingly done to the Art Deco former EBS building on Westmoreland Street or Norman Foster done to the Reichstag in Berlin. (At least the Baroque jewel, the Reichstag was firebombed and blitzed) We have seen this type of treatment of merging old with new umpteen times before. If these boys think that this treatment is original, how indifferent they are, for this is just a copy and paste job and rather lazy really! It will look as bad as that Ulster Bank complex on George Dock with the old classical pillars framing the entrance. Developer/Architect idiots like these have no appreciation of classical architecture, as demonstrated here. What do they learn in college at all?

Despite the Celtic Tiger, architectural awareness, etc… a certain Irish thickness still remains!

The neglect and abuse of such a fine old architectural feature on this street is incredible. Ye’d never see this happening abroad today. Imagine this happening in Italy, France, or Spain’s old cities! Britain, definitely yes!

Does the old stigma still remain today that because it was a Presbyterian Church that the half wits at the Corpo neglected it and let it fall into disrepair!

The fine old charming buildings of Dublin are still disappearing right before of our eyes. Where was An Taisce to raise concerns about the fate of this particular building. Too busy meddling with the high profile proposals down the docks or Ballsbridge. There will be hardly any old buildings left in Dublin city that will remain untouched and intact, everthing will have the mark of being botched or abused! Dublin City will eventually look like a suburb with it’s historical core of fine stone and brick buildings gone, replaced with concrete, PVC, suburban type shite!

Anyone see the appalling one/two storey surburban school building that they built on Sean McDermot Street just around the corner from the Gresham Hotel and O’Connell Street. Yer man O’Rourke who was responsible for the rebuilding of O’Connell Street after the 1916 Rising is no doubt rolling in his grave when he sees the likes of this shite and some of the half-wits that class themselves as urban architects, planners and developers.

@johnglas wrote:

GregF: sympathetic to some of what you say, but there’s no need to hate yourself, fellow professionals, your city and your country in general quite so much! With friends like you, who needs enemies?

Oi, ye little cheeky bastard!

U don’t know me!

For I have a great love for my city!

BTW, I’m no friend of yours !

@phil wrote:

If you look back the thread a bit there is information provided by a few others as to what happened to the church. An awful pity, but I am not sure it is fair to blame An Taisce for its demise (And perhaps it was not the then Corporation’s fault either).

oh indeed I remember the Church as it stood in a sorry but somewhat intact state before it was vandalized and set alight in the 80’s.
How the Protestant Church, St. Catherines on Thomas Street never suffered a similar fate is incredible as it stood idle, neglected and vandalized for over 30 years before some local religious and community group showed initiative and revitalized it. Pity about that other fine Protestant/Methodist Church on Merrion Square/Fenian Street that suffered a similar fate of neglect and vandalism before it was ruthlessly gutted and transformed into the O’Callaghan Davenport Hotel. The arcitectural merits of such Protestant Church’s in Dublin city centre greatly overlooked.

@GregF wrote:

Pity about that other fine Protestant/Methodist Church on Merrion Square/Fenian Street that suffered a similar fate of neglect and vandalism before it was ruthlessly gutted and transformed into the O’Callaghan Davenport Hotel.

Suspect fire …ahem… excuse my cough

@GregF wrote:

What the developers done here is appalling! And the glass block proposal is so fucking awful! Probably think that they are doing what Sam Stephenson appallingly done to the Art Deco former EBS building on Westmoreland Street or Norman Foster done to the Reichstag in Berlin. (At least the Baroque jewel, the Reichstag was firebombed and blitzed) We have seen this type of treatment of merging old with new umpteen times before. If these boys think that this treatment is original, how indifferent they are, for this is just a copy and paste job and rather lazy really! It will look as bad as that Ulster Bank complex on George Dock with the old classical pillars framing the entrance. Developer/Architect idiots like these have no appreciation of classical architecture, as demonstrated here. What do they learn in college at all?

Greg, maybe you should check the status of the proposal before going on a rant. The overall scheme was granted permission last month. Owning to concerns raised by An Taisce and others, Condition 2 (iv) of the decision requires the glazing to be setback by 6 metres fron the church facade – <a href="http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=1174/08&theTabNo=2&backURL=Search%20Criteria%20>%201174/08

The wonderful little portico will be repaired, which is obviously welcome.

@hutton wrote:

T
Re the yellow brick school closer to Cathal Brugha St, afaik the school wanted the structure to be built so that it would be able to take the load of further floors in future years – however it was the mandarins in the dept of Education that penny-pinched, and so blocked even that option. I suspect the same said mandarins live in polite middle class suburbs on the southside…

I work there and can confirm this – well partly, it was the Dept. who cut money but the VEC that decided to take off the top floor and not build foundations that would have allowed an upward extension should it be needed. They just lopped the top off the plans, making no allowances for things like heating and air systems within the building. As a result there are problems with air flow and leaks from the roof that should have been a floor.

We’re now at capacity, since what should have been a 600/800 pupil school ended up as just a 400 pupil school. Mind you, we were waiting over 20 years for ‘the new school’ so even in its truncated format it was welcome.

It’s a fine school though, with fantastic sporting facilities – easily the best equipped school in Dublin and has transformed educational attainment and participation levels among local children.

http://www.larkincommunitycollege.ie

I think it’s worth keeping this church-front as a quirky little footnote on the street, even if the overall design is lacking. Perhaps something a little more sensitive to its surroundings would be more suitable though? Around the corner (on Lower Gardiner St), there’s a Cosgrave built mock-georgian apartment complex which seems to retain that Georgian elegance, petering out on Middle Gardiner St, only to return to thunderous applause at Mountjoy Square!

The loss of the Georgians is certainly lamentable, but it’s a much more pleasant area these days altogether, a far cry from the bleak outlook portrayed in these pictures http://www.dublin1850.com/old_and_new.html

@tommyt wrote:

More photos from c.1980

http://www.dublin1850.com/old_and_new.html

Great record. An incredible amount was demolished around there at that time. If the guy who took the ‘now’ photos has access to negatives for the 1980 colour photos, it would be worth getting them digitally scanned. I’m presuming the photos on the site are just scans of 4″ x 6″ prints, which were always printed slightly out of focus anyway to conceal dust.

After seeing these before and after photos and similar from other areas of Dublin I feel physically sick at what has taken place to this city. Historic Dublin streets frontages had a consistent architectural style similar to most other European cities. So much of these streets could have easily been restored. And to think most of the dreadful replacement buildings are of public ownership.

We are preoccupied with stopping development of tall building in newer parts of the city but arequite willing to see these historic street frontages replaced by such awful muck as long as they are “of the same height”.

We cover beautiful stone and brickwork with render, we accept neon signs on historic buildings, we cover temples in glass and build permanent portacabins behind.

As a nation we must be the most aesthetically challenged in Europe!