D’Olier & Westmoreland St.
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The cycleway was dropped when Line B was modified to allow it to be upgraded to “Metro” standard. Basically the track centerlines were moved further apart to allow for a wider vehicle.
There are cycle parking facilities at the outlying stops on both Luas lines.
There’s also some debate going on about allowing bikes on the trams. Probably be possible off peak.
JJ
Believe it or not there was a plan at one stage to have a contra flow cycle lane on Westmoreland st. :confused:
I couldn’t believe it when I saw it first. I’ll try and dig out the document it not to old either.
I can’t find the map where I originally came across the contra flow but here is a document outlining it.
Cycle routes southbound across O’Connell Bridge along Westmoreland St.
I’m still amazed that bikes aren’t even allowed on the DART. It would open up wicklow and howth to tourists in a big way. and commuters of course.
I presume you will still be able to cycle down harcourt st. with the buses + taxis?
What they should really do on westmoreland street is at least put a central division down the middle of the street to stop things getting as crazy as they are now.
So 2 lanes, break, then 2 lanes again.Or what is they had an underground cycle/pedestrian tunnel that went from BOI pavement to the corner of westmoreland/aston quay? that way you could have one going under westmoreland too.
I’m still amazed that bikes aren’t even allowed on the DART. It would open up wicklow and howth to tourists in a big way. and commuters of course.
I presume you will still be able to cycle down harcourt st. with the buses + taxis?
What they should really do on westmoreland street is at least put a central division down the middle of the street to stop things getting as crazy as they are now.
So 2 lanes, break, then 2 lanes again.Or what is they had an underground cycle/pedestrian tunnel that went from BOI pavement to the corner of westmoreland/aston quay? that way you could have one going under westmoreland too.
I’m still amazed that bikes aren’t even allowed on the DART. It would open up wicklow and howth to tourists in a big way. and commuters of course.
I presume you will still be able to cycle down harcourt st. with the buses + taxis?
What they should really do on westmoreland street is at least put a central division down the middle of the street to stop things getting as crazy as they are now.
So 2 lanes, break, then 2 lanes again.Or what is they had an underground cycle/pedestrian tunnel that went from BOI pavement to the corner of westmoreland/aston quay? that way you could have one going under westmoreland too.
https://archiseek.com/content/sh…5&pagenumber=17
Anything less is simply fiddling with the issue.
The City Council must decide do they want a European style boulevard or an american type avenue at the city’s core.
@Devin wrote:
Probably the worst of O’Connell Bridge House’s numerous sins is that it destroys the primacy of the ICS building, which was so obviously built to be a central dominating landmark in the D’Olier/Westmoreland composition.
I wonder what the effect would be if the twin of O’Connell Bridge House had been allowed to go ahead on the site of the Ballast Office?
One can only imagine – although I think it would be safe to assume it would have been disasterous; two comparitively huge buildings of significant bulk and mediocre architecture would have radically altered the nature of the city centre itself. We escaped lightly with the one. From the side cladding, to the scale, to the bulk, to the location, it’s wholly indequate on all fronts – although I must admit to having a strange liking for the stepped profile of the top floor :confused:
Those red buildings on D’Olier St are interesting Devin – forgot to pick up on it before when you mentioned them. I’ve often passed them wondering about the age of the brick – it appears to be Georgian on first impressions at least. And the building next door covered in paint has just enough peeling off at the top to see red brick peeking through too. Very strange.
And presumably there’s little photographic evidence of the colour of the demolished ones, they being swept away in the days of monochrome.
Great pics there – the latter being particlarly bizarre. It’s interesting how the city returns to a more human scale with the absence of O’Cll Bridge House.The Bank of Ireland proposed building a landmark HQ on the site of the ICS at one stage, not a Miesian power-block in the 70s as one may suspect, but just after 1800 🙂
It would be interesting to see what was proposed.@Graham Hickey wrote:
The Bank of Ireland proposed building a landmark HQ on the site of the ICS at one stage, not a Miesian power-block in the 70s as one may suspect, but just after 1800 🙂
It would be interesting to see what was proposed.John Soane
(apologies for quality – hurried photograph of a book)Wow is right! Thanks for that Paul – so is the main facade there to the right stretching down Westmoreland St with the portico (very similar to Chamber’s Trinity works) on the ICS site?
We’d cetainly have a very different city centre had that gone ahead, and not neceassarily a better one – quite a vulgar building from what can be made out there.
Ireland’s Buckingham Palace 🙂it was one of three concepts supplied… though i seem to recall that this was the prefered one (have had this image on my pc for a few years now, never got around to posting it before)
i think it was the fleet street / college street / westmoreland street triangle – where the Westin Hotel was…. I think that the Bank of Ireland had even gone so far as acquiring most of the site… dates from 1799… so of course we all know what happened in 1801 to remove the Bank’s interest in the Soane project….
It certainly would have been a spectacle, with Trinity alongside and House of Lords across the road.
Wonder if it had any of Soane’s trademark ‘handkerchief ceilings’ – don’t know of any in this country.It appears that the Soane bank would have formed part of very grand architectural plans for D’Olier/Westmoreland Sts. that the WSCs had in mind at one point*, which I think would have created too much granduer so close to the Parliament House & Trinity. Then there was also a plan for brick elevations with an arcaded walkway at ground floor – which is a nice idea but maybe not that suitable for Dublin. Then they finally settled on brick elevations with regular ground floors, like had recently been completed on Lwr. O’Connell St.
The thing is, what was built (the least grand of the three options) was absolutely perfect for setting off the House of Lords portico & Trinity front to the south, & Pillar & GPO to the north.
Those piered granite shopfronts of D’Olier/Westmoreland Sts. looked fabulous running one after the other along the street – a real case of the whole adding up to more than the sum of the parts 🙂 .*Feature by Edward McParland in the Irish Georgian Society bulletin, Jan.-Mar. 1972.
Definitely – and the best place today to at least imagine their grand impact and impeccable proportions is outside McDonalds or Burger King of all places, on O’Cll St. The Irish Times terrace gives a very good idea of what Westmoreland was like, and at this position your’re almost in line with the apex of the streets which gives you a very good idea of how the streets worked with each other. Unfortunately the ‘bungalow-like’ structure as Frank McDonald so described of the mansard roof of the ICS ‘replicas’ horriblly intrudes on the parapet of the terraces which are as straight as arrows up to this point.
It’s a pity also that there’s none of the shopfronts left on Westmoreland St, were they the same as D’Olier St?
Also I’ve wondered if Francis Johnston was the architect for this scheme or even consulting architect, as the shopfronts on D’Olier St are very similar in style and materials to the side elevation his Stamp Office to the rear of Powerscourt House just off South William St, with the same rustic granite and little ionic pilasters etc along the ground floor.I agree about Soane’s scheme generating something of a classical overload for this area, esp as a scheme of this type would look irregular facing into the street rather than onto the river a mere few yards away. What should have been done though, had Westmoreland St existed at the time of Trinity’s building (and the BoI portico) is to have created a simple pleasant facade for the college, similar to the West Front, facing onto College St, creating a secondary square to College Green, with the corner pavilion linking the two facades together, instead of the rubble stone wall of the college we now have, hidden with trees.
I think it’s funny that Trinity is so often spoken of in touristy phrases of it being so significant etc – but albeit one of my favourite buildings in the city, if ever there was a scheme done on the cheap, this is it 🙂 From inside Parliament Square to the varoius external facades, 250 years later it’s still shouting to Parliament across the road for more money 🙂You can only presume that the shopfronts on Westmoreland Street were the same as the D’Olier Street ones, as that is the way they appear on original WSC’s drawings and in the Brocas print of 1820. But even in early photos they seem to be mostly gone – replaced by timber late-19th century-type ones, or replaced along with the entire building – as in most of block between the BOI portico and Fleet Street, as seen in the 1920s photo below. When you look at the amount of Victorian infill on this block, it’s surprising how much of the overall WSC’s D’Olier/Westm Sts. scheme survived up to the ‘60s/’70s..…then John Byrne et al got to work 🙁
But you can see an original doric-pilastered granite shopfront on the building adjoining the portico in the photo. It’s a pity this building and the other original beside it were demolished & replaced in the ‘50s – they looked magnificent beside the bank….the proportions…..the sombriety……
Somebody recently was praising the ‘50s building that’s there now, but I think it’s terrible….a slap in the face to what was there.Wahey – we have a WSC shopfront! Looks the same as D’Olier St’s ones.
Also interesting to see the original buildings on the site of the BoI 30s building – not sure I like it anymore now 🙂As this topic is raised again, I think I have an explanation for the red brick aliens on the east side of D’Olier St.
I have engraving from 1820 of the street and it would appear that that side was never properly developed, although it may have been subsequent to the pic.
In the very centre of the terrace, on the site of the Gas Building, is a large white building, probably stone and 5 bays wide. The building is the same height as the terrace but is only 3 storeys in total. The terrace continues down a bit more towards Pearse St, with the regular WSC buildings of T & C Martin, now D’Olier House, but stops before the site of the current red-bricked buildings and D’Olier Chambers, where there’s a small two storey building with a pitched roof covering pretty much all these sites.Hence, as the red brickwork suggests, these buildings are early 19th century and may not even have been built by the WSC. Wonder if they were built on the site of D’Olier Chambers too…
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