Dublin city centre flats

I don’t know about architecturally interesting but in terms of quality of building, the older ones put the recent dross to shame. eg. Courtney place in Ballybough in bits and needing complete rebuilding after only 30 years or so while Poplar Row built much earlier is still going strong across the road.

I always liked those Guinness built (?) flats in the Liberties. I haven’t been in any of them though so can’t say what they are like to live in.

Many of the older ones were well-built and sturdy, better than the post-war ones. At least they addressed the street and made a feeling of enclosure and urbanity, not like those ones with the peaked roofs and circular towers attached which were so badly integrated into the townscape.

I know this is very late in the day when this thread has gone dead, but I don’t think many people in Dublin recognise the quality and integrity of many of these buildings (because most architects and designers are terminally middle-class?). What they (the buildings) need is some tlc, good environmental improvements, an enlightened management policy and being ‘gated’ (not always a bad thing, especially in the inner city). The ‘Guinness improvement’ flats between the cathedrals and the ‘Amsterdam School’ complexes in various locations are as good as you’ll get anywhere and deserve more attention.

I’ll think you’ll find that they are very well regarded by architects

Paul: I was winding folk up; I’m sure they are, but the lesson of solid design and contribution to streetscape seems to have got a bit lost. In spite of a great deal of stupid negative criticism (‘they’ll become the new slums’…) many of the more recent flat developments are also of a high standard and my point was merely that flats (particularly social housing) need a great deal of on-going maintenance and management, preferably by tenants/residents themselves. And there are solid templates from the past which could act as pointers to current design.

I’ll agree with you the Iveagh Trust (Guinness) flats around Bull Alley street are pretty amazing in terms of how long they’ve lasted. There was a little article on them in an architecture guide of dublin last year and one which has been preserved internally.

I’m also a fan of those 1950’s flats in James’ street and Richmond road but those PVC windoes do them no justice.

@johnglas wrote:

(‘they’ll become the new slums’…)

most people on this site would aim this criticism (and quite rightly) at the section 23 shit that was thrown up when we needed buildings of any kind rather than good quality social housing (which isn’t built to the bare minimum standards – unlink a lot of the dross of the early 90s)

Roryw: this has never been my view and some of the early 90s build-anything-anywhere stuff was poor. But how slummy are even these flats now? The early 90s were 15 years ago (do the math) – time enough to judge (and not by the standards of leafy suburbia). What is the view on the street? Which complexes have done well and which not so well (or very badly)?
The 3 best and the 3 worst (built before 2000).

@johnglas wrote:

Roryw: this has never been my view and some of the early 90s build-anything-anywhere stuff was poor. But how slummy are even these flats now? The early 90s were 15 years ago (do the math) – time enough to judge (and not by the standards of leafy suburbia). What is the view on the street? Which complexes have done well and which not so well (or very badly)?
The 3 best and the 3 worst (built before 2000).

As you say just 15 years ago (doing the maths), but if you look at the deteriation of a lot of the Zoe built flats you’ll see that they’re well on the way (obviously well never get old Dublin style slums) but the poor quality of the build, coupled with poor maintenance and the transient nature of the residents means these buildings are beginning to fail.

The socially built complexes were built to last, a lot of the section 23 stuff wasn’t (as can be seen from Zoe replacing a 10 year old block of apartments already). My point being that modern socially built buildings are built better than the lower end of private developments

I agree; but the private sector rented or owned flats still form the majority of what was built. I think that much social housing is better than its private-sector equivalent, but there seems to be such a stigma in Ireland against it.
PS The expression is ‘Do the math.’ (it’s American); and it’s ‘deterioration’, by the way.

The corporation flat block on townsend street- i think you have them pictured above

@johnglas wrote:

(it’s American)

I suspect this was Rory’s point too. 😉

No, the expression is American; ‘Do the maths’ doesn’t mean the same thing.

@johnglas wrote:

No, the expression is American;

I gathered. My point stands.

Don’t be stupid; just let it go – you had no substantive point in the first place.

@johnglas wrote:

I agree; but the private sector rented or owned flats still form the majority of what was built. I think that much social housing is better than its private-sector equivalent, but there seems to be such a stigma in Ireland against it.
PS The expression is ‘Do the math.’ (it’s American); and it’s ‘deterioration’, by the way.

I agree 100% with the point made

Yes the expression is American – however I’m Irish and you are Scottish, so I do maths

Yersh deterioration – noxt tim I’hll use my speelchokker

@johnglas wrote:

Don’t be stupid; just let it go – you had no substantive point in the first place.

Oh please. The gloves are staying on for now, but that presumes you know when you’re beat.

I think you mean ‘beaten’ and my gloves are well and truly off. When you can speak and write colloquial and grammatical English, come back into the ring.

Is it possible to be colloquial and grammatical at the same time: I usually try to chose the former.

@johnglas wrote:

I think you mean ‘beaten’ and my gloves are well and truly off. When you can speak and write colloquial and grammatical English, come back into the ring.

No, I meant ‘beat’. It was a joke, designed to show up the folly of using Americanisms on an Irish architecture message board. Thank you for making my point for me.

Also, if you can find any grammatical errors in any of my previous posts, please point them out. (And I don’t mean the deliberate errors.)

Thank you and good day.

@johnglas wrote:

I think you mean ‘beaten’ and my gloves are well and truly off. When you can speak and write colloquial and grammatical English, come back into the ring.

Grammatical English?
“Do the math” is an Americanism and usually made as a pejorative comment.
“Do the maths” is English and is not deprecating. Anyway, Rory W is too polite (usually) 😀
K.

‘Do the math’ is a midly exasperated, ironic comment meaning ‘obviously’ (without any real side); ‘Do the maths’ actually would be deprecating. The grammatical English referred to ‘beaten’ rather than ‘beat’. I have no knowledge of or views on RoryW, with whom I was having a dialogue about Dublin inner -city flats until your intervention.
As they say, I think this correspondence is now closed.

Couldn’t help but notice but all the windows in the flats aren’t original even the sash windows look brand new.
I really hate it when CC’s throw out perfectly good windows and install new ones or worse, when they put in god awful uPVC.
All the old windows needed was a little bit of TLC.
I think new sash windows never look as good as the old ones.
Old sash windows have a rounded look and feel,
new sash windows look like they could be uPVC they just look too perfect.

Couldn’t agree more; over here, Glasgow CC replaced almost all windows with totally inappropriate uPVC. However, whole blocks were done at the same time; in the private sector, windows were done at random and to no agreed profile – result: dog’s dinner.
I can’t understand why there isn’t a bye-law insisting that, if windows are replaced on a building, they must retain as near as possibe the appearance and profile of what was there originally. Unenforceable? But a few prosecutions might encouragent les autres.