Deco Beach – Galway City

1. The building in Galway is indeed the former Savoy Cinema, closed and basically now just a facade. I think that the architect was Robinson of Robinson & Keefe.

2. There is a fairly large site dealing with Art Deco and moderne buildings in Ireland at
Art Deco Ireland
http://www.geocities.com/paris/salon/6941/deco1.htm

@john white wrote:

I was at a wedding last weekend in Galway city. It must be the Atlantic/American influence or something but they have some deco style architecture there. A street running accross upper Whitegate street or something has a sad neglected grey building on it with crappy shops in the bottom and aluminium windows. It looks very similar to the Deco Beach ones. I took a photo and will post it when I get it. I’d love to see it restoed externally at least. Painted white with lilac and pink details and with those windows replaced.

Also on the way back to Dublin on Sunday from Galway my girlfriend admired some water towers – one standing alone in a field and another more dilapidated vandalised one in Craughwell . Took some shots.

All in all a very exciting week-end with some exploration too!

John

Yeh John.That was the Savoy Cinema in Eglinton St. Galway City Council gave permission for the building (minus the facade) to be demolished along with the Imperial Hotel on Eyre Square, to which it is attached from the rear.

However, An Taisce appealed and won on massing, height and inappropriate design etc. The latest is that the Imperial is to be developed alone as a retail unit, and, the Savoy side will constitute a phase two development to come later.

There is also an Art Deco building in Merchants Road (formerely McDonaghs Hardware Store) now a retail unit, with facade left in place.

That nurses residence needs painting and cleaning,

Should add that the McDonagh’s building on Merchant’s Road has a wonderfully restored original interior as well (apart from a nasty laminate timber floor that’s pretty shoddy looking. The previous tenants were a furniture store but they painted the exterior a really unfortnuate peach colour. It was originally white and looked great. It’s currently lying empty – used as a hugely impressive box office for Galway Arts Festival last year with a great display of photos from festivals gone by. I believe, and I may be wrong, that it’s now owned by developer extraordinaire Gerry Barrett (aka Edward) so I’d have high hopes that whatever it’s future use the fabric and character of the building will be well respected. It’d make a great gallery space or i’ve even imagined it as a really chilled bar/restaurant/venue. In the daytime the quality of light inside is wonderful.

Theres a couple more buildings not mentioned yet that I’d see as being in the “Deco” style – the old Silke’s warehouse near Dominic St. is a lovely building and could really do with some TLC. Seapoint in Salthill also has echoes of the style and by all accounts has a wonderful old dance hall on the upper floors – I havent seen it myself but Id assume it’d have a fairly streamlined deco type interior. It’s yet another building in Galway that’s underutilized though. Id love to see big gigs and events back there but apparently the lack of wheelchair accessibility has the place lying empty.