Drogheda Grammar School Lives Again ???

Looks like a Brooklyn cop shop from a Paul Newman movie of which the name eludes me.

Horrific pastiche s***e

Kinda reminds me of that building which was built during the late 80s on the corner of Leeson Street and Fitzwilliam Street. Not sure what it is called but it is a piece of trash. I heard that there was a poll done at one stage asking the public which was their favourite building and asking some architects theirs. The outcome was that the building in question was the publics favourite but the architects most hated. It sort of comes back to Devin’s comments on the ‘New Streets of Dublin’ thread: “The public want plastic georgian windows and flower baskets.”!!! Maybe it is true!

Originally posted by phil
Kinda reminds me of that building which was built during the late 80s on the corner of Leeson Street and Fitzwilliam Street. Not sure what it is called but it is a piece of trash.

The former Bank of Ireland Asset Management building.

Why was this done?
I thought we left this kind of thing back in 1989.
Why didn’t they just throw up the usual modern red bricked or pebble-dashed type construction?
Is there a reason for the pastiche – just that building like this on such a large scale doesn’t really happen today.

I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon and say what trash, what rubbish etc, simply because it dosn’t look that bad in the pic – more like an OPW 1930s Garda Station than anything else. I’ll take your word on it Paul!
That’s not to say I’m in favour of such regurgitative building – I hate it with avengance.

Why was this done? Well, in Scotland we have PPP

Where you start of with the best of intentions Graham, developing a brief and a design at the behest of the commissioning authority……..and good design is at this time is a priority.

You compose the tender documentation so that you think that it is water tight and only a school building that is edifying and encouraging and a great place to be and learn is possible.

Then it goes out to tender and it becomes a business decission and so the contractor make his own cost driven recommendations and suggest modifications

Fort Apache Diaspora, The Bronx

Ah it’s not the worst – why they made them do this was that the original developer of the site illegally pulled down the old grammar school but wasn’t allowed to build anything on the site which wasn’t some kind of a reproduction of the original building. It is at least an attempt, Drogheda’s record on preservation is shaky at best, but this new development (Part of the St Lawrences centre) is welcome in Drogheda – a town which is currently dying on it’s arse for lack of shopping development (a hideous Dunnes and Tesco on West Street and the Drogheda Town Centre which must have looked great in about 1985). Drogheda is probably the fastest growing town in Ireland (or suburb of Dublin – I get letters addressed to me as Drogheda, Co Dublin) and needs facilities to cope with this fact.

Yes it’s pastiche, but the developer wasn’t allowed get away with tearing down the building and replacing it with what was originally proposed (i.e. bland 1991 crap) at least this building is somewhat smypathetic to its surroundings