D’Olier & Westmoreland St.
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I totally agree Graham on the BOI buildings on Westmoreland St, I quite liked those before seeing Devin’s images. When I was in College I remember reading a UK planning text that showed a picture taken from the Junction of Fleet St (IT end) & Westmoreland St c1990 with the accompanying text extolling the virtues of the inter-period relationship of all the buildings and Trees as far as the junction of Grafton St and College Green. The photographer and author obviously weren’t regular pedestrians through this area.
I do believe it was me who praised the BoI recently π – and Phil too, who raised it on the Gaiety Centre thread.
I think it is an attractive piece of architecture, indeed one of the better modern infills in the centre.
There is no doubt though that what was there before was far superior; what a perfect setting for the ‘real’ BoI next door – especially the wrap-around facade actually facing the Lords portico you can see in the first old pic there, just imagine what that would have looked like with its red brick, Georgian sashes & exquiste proportions flanking the newly added giant doorway of the BoI. It would have been magnificent. And nowhere, except maybe with the GPO and Lwr Sackville St, did the flanking brick Georgians ever come so close to their centrepiece.
It doesn’t bear thinking about πAnd there’s nothing like a Georgian corner either, what a daft thing to say, but really they’re so rare – to get a decent bricked Georgian corner with windows on both sides is something of a novelty, we’re so used to townhouses being so superficial etc. Corners make them so much more substantial and real.
I think we need to put things in perspective though with regard to the 50s BoI. If the originals on the site weren’t knocked (not that I’m defending it) we’d currently have two buildings with Victorian additions, coated in a layer of render and smothered in kiddies yellow poster paint. That would be an insult to what’s next door.
At least the 50s BoI acknowledges the big BoI by using red brick and similar coloured concrete/stone as dressing. It also fits in quite well with the distinctive jumble of buildings next door, indeed if anything provides something of a relief – halting them before managing to creep in next to the BoI – something of a buffer building πNotice the way all the side windows of the original have been bricked up or were just fake windows to begin with. Also guys this photo doesnt tell you what the rendering to the building looked like…. may well have been a lovely bright yellow!
@StephenC wrote:
Notice the way all the side windows of the original have been bricked up or were just fake windows to begin with. Also guys this photo doesnt tell you what the rendering to the building looked like…. may well have been a lovely bright yellow!
They would have been niches to begin with rather than bricked up
Niches?? I don’t know about that.
The “bricked up” windows may have been like that from the beginning right enough (“fake”) – implication was just as important as reality in Georgian architecture π
@Graham Hickey wrote:
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.ThatΓ’β¬β’s interesting. So what we think of as the complete and unified great DΓ’β¬β’Olier/Westmoreland Street scheme of circa 1800 may not have been so complete & unified after all!!
You can just about see that three-storey building you are talking about Graham on the site of the gas building in this 1880s photo posted before. Wonder what it was? – I’m going to have at look a Shaw’s Dublin Directory, 1850 this evening (which shows drawn elevations of all the central streets in Dublin) to see what it shows:https://archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=486
ItΓ’β¬β’s also interesting that The Carlisle Building on the Burgh Quay cnr (definitely by WSCs) was four storeys and not five.
With regard to the Γ’β¬Λ50s (or earlier) building, I think some of the positive comments made about it before were that it wouldΓ’β¬β’ve looked better when it had itΓ’β¬β’s original steel windows. While I agree wouldΓ’β¬β’ve looked better with orig. windows, I don’t think it’s a great example of its type and I think its relation to the bank is quite poor – that flippant ’50p’ corner should never have been done in this important location!
I think the 50p corner’s a great quirky feature! Of course that opinion is entirely generated by a rose-tinted view of the building and if something other than a straight corner was built today I’d be outraged at the watering down of the WSC’s composition π Agreed re the windows at least – those early 80s bronzy frames are the very worst kind of replacement window, esp when coupled with those horrendous cheapo mullions.
The corner specimens would look particularly fine in steel.Had a look today at the red-bricks on D’Olier St, it would appear they went no further than their existing site, i.e. D’Olier Chambers at the end was a newbuild when it went up in the 1890s – based upon the fact that the quoin stones of the last redbrick wrap right round the little corner which D’Olier Chambers is set back from (although the small 2-storey in the Brocas print may have covered part of its site)
Looking up Shaw’s is a good idea – amazing what a few sketched lines can tell you!I never understood the designs chosen for Carlisle Building and the Ballast Office. Why depart so lightly from the rest of the streetscape? Either go the whole way and put two landmark stone buildings there, or completely maintain the streetscape right up to the corners.
From what can be deduced from photos and prints, I think they quite substantially diluted the regularised effect being created, esp the Carlisle Building only featuring four storeys. Likewise with the Ballast Office only barely departing from the window dressings and string courses – doesn’t seem to work I think…Had a look in ShawΓ’β¬β’s 1850 pictorial directory – the 3-storey classical building where the Gas Co. is shown – no other info.
That side of DΓ’β¬β’Olier St. seems to be complete with full-height buildings up to the Hawkins St. junction at this time, but the building on the corner (where the 1890s DΓ’β¬β’Olier Chambers is now) looks a bit different, with round-headed windows on the gnd. & 1st floors – so it may not be by the WSCs (that might explain the quoins wrapping around the cnr. of the last red brick building if the corner building in ShawΓ’β¬β’s was built a bit later or also set back a little).
@Graham Hickey wrote:
I never understood the designs chosen for Carlisle Building and the Ballast Office. Why depart so lightly from the rest of the streetscape? Either go the whole way and put two landmark stone buildings there, or completely maintain the streetscape right up to the corners.
In ShawΓ’β¬β’s, the normal Westmoreland St. buildings go right up to the corner of AstonΓ’β¬β’s Quay – thereΓ’β¬β’s no landmark building. According to Frederick OΓ’β¬β’DwyerΓ’β¬β’s Lost Dublin, the Ballast Office was only given the alterations to make it into a landmark building in the 1860s.
Ah, that explains a lot – feel so much better now actually, that’s annoyed me for years!
Ironic in a way then that the replica of the Ballast Office repeated these incongrous additions!Looking at the Brocas print in hindsight actually proves your point about the additions – I’ve a poor copy so it was always too difficult to clearly make out the wndows dressings without knowing for sure.
Interesting to see at the moment that Ballast House is having to advertise itself for letting as a ‘modern office building’ – modern interior or not (and a crappy one at that) – the demolition backfired π
@Graham Hickey wrote:
Ironic in a way then that the replica of the Ballast Office repeated these incongrous additions
And, even more ironic, it made itself even bigger! The Ballast Office was 6 six bays onto Westm. Street but Ballast House is 8 bays of fakery of a fake landmark! π‘ As if demolishing the Ballast Office wasn’t enough, it had to take one more original just for good (bad) measure π π‘
It consumed another too I’m afraid – currently an average replica added on the side. A better replica that the ICS (frankly they’re not even on the same planet) but not great all the same.
The Ballast Office chimney is one of the greatest losses – what a spectacle, almost back to the days of Tudor chimney-wars π
This side of the street is probably one of the most unnoticed terraces in the city because everyone mushes in on that pavement directly below Ballast House; the opposite side from where it can be seen being rarely used.
There’s some more Victorian additions on the remaining WSCs there too, excluding Bewleys.Here’s the remaining four on the east side of the street – all retaining their beautiful original granite dressings.
Look at how utterly horrendous Spar is, esp how it forces the ground floor windows to perch atop that yoke of a shopfront.
Presumably these buildings could be easily restored to their former glory – indeed it’s surprising how many Georgian sashes have survived in spite of all the other alterations, some of which look 20th century.Also here’s the corner building on the opposite side next to Bewley’s. Interesting to compare the gable fenestration with that of Devin’s earlier pic – there may well have been windows in the blank area of the wall originally, let alone the blind granite mouldings.
Also what’s with all the fans scattered all over this facade – presumably for bathroom/wardrobe ventilation or something – they look awful. They run down the front facade too.
Here’s a few more WSC images (sorry if you’re on a dial-up, once you get the broadband all morals go out the window π – tried to keep them small though)
They include this lesser known feature below – the D’Olier St-Pearse St signature buildings facing each other to create a striking composition.Here’s one today, Doyle’s – a building for the render-strippers if ever you saw one. How could anyone in any age possibly view the addition of the render and later shutters as an improvement?! It’s really quite bizarre – looks like a before and after Photoshop job π
Note how the lovely corner setbacks with quoins at each side are mirrored in the Pearse St building below, now of course the Garda Station (pic from Ken Finlay’s great site, what a resource):
Also the much celebrated Irish Times corner – an unusual shape too not being quite symmetrically rounded.
I love how this corner shows up the WSC terrace for what it is – a stage set, the way it wraps round the corner to cover the side view and then falls away to nothing:
The beautiful capitals of the remaining IT shopfronts – have to be one of the finest features of Georgian Dublin:
And their context with pilasters on a shopfront:
Finally the red bricks on D’Olier St – in an appalling state of repair just yards from O’Connell Bridge – wonder if the left-hand one had an oriel window too at one stage:
I was – as usual – stuck in traffic on Westmoreland street today and was looking at the EBS building and thinking what a nice vertical entrance “strip”. It’s hard to appreciate tho due to the mirrored horrors on either side. Does anyone have a pic of its original self?
Interesting shot Paul. I always assumed that the middle section of the EBS was the left overs from an older building and that an old photo would reveal symetrical side pieces. Shows how wrong it is to assume about history!
On another note, that Irish Times clock seems to just keep moving east doesn’t it?
Wow – I have never before seen what this stretch looked like before the EBS got their hands on it. What a shame. What a nice interesting mix of buildings. Very much a mirror of the opposite side of the street.
In defence of Sam (!)
I like the EBS – or more specifically the EBS as planned originally – before the planners directed Sam S. to insert the grey modular grid into the facade left of entrance. Its one of those few instances where the best of planners intentions led to limp consequences – apparently they felt it necessary for the EBS to incorporate the drab grey grid so that the block would fit in better with the rest of the terrace. Unlike the Wood Quay bunkers, this I think would have been more aesthetically complete had Sam been left to his own devices; very po-mo with the older central element balanced by reflective contemporary elements. Don’t suppose:
A – the chemists shop facade was saved for salvage?
B- in view of the visually limp outcome, that the grey grid can be got rid of – thus rendering the EBS building aesthetically balanced/ complete?
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