Dublin skyline

dublin is a european capital and obviousily not one of the larger population centres but nevertheless an important city. and what appears to me to be one of the major stumbling blocks towards more bold, advanced and imaginative architecture is the lack of resources currently attributed to ABP. this has led to a backlog of work etc and perhaps one or two senior staff can pick and chose what they want to examine and if they decide yey or nay, thats it. complete conjecture obviousily but just like a lot of other areas in irish public life, such as health and transport, years of underfunding and bad management have resulted in resources being pushed to breaking point by the amazing increase in capital and success etc of recent years.
a great pity that cities like dublin, limerick and cork are not able to rely on their own ability to decide what does and does not get built within their jurisdiction. i am not sure but i believe that is the case in london and i assume other british cities. i know that dublin city has granted outline planning permission to areas like the north docklands to generate interest but like a lot of things ireland needs to bring herself up to speed.
one good side to all of this is at least the city has’nt been innundated with bollocks no-one wants to see built just so we can have a few monuments to money!!!

I think the highrise debate shows the extent of Dublin’s identity crisis. Nearly 200 years of economic stagnation froze the city in the Georgian era until we kicked the brits out and started knocking down most of that. Then we got a bit of sense and filled in the gaps that were left the best we could. Then, a few years ago, we got rich, but were too scared/ unimaginative to do anything except continue filling in the gaps, this time with a bit more taste.
As far as I can see, that’s it. With the odd exception, we’ve no grand Victorian flourishes, no great deco buildings – modernism and much of the 20th century passed us by…
I think it’s understandable that people are getting impatient with Dublin’s failure to assert its new reality visually, and highrise is the quick, easy way for a generation to put its stamp on the look of a city.
With an almost totally flat skyline, obviously we have to be careful what we put up, but we’ve nearly 10 years of a boom behind us and nothing special to show for it besides an increasingly-filthy spike. I don’t know where the problem is, but we seem incapable of taking risks and making bold statements. I don’t necessarily want skyscrapers everywhere but we need to start building to reflect the fact that we’re a dynamic, European capital…

agreed…the last thing we need in dublin is a rash of ill thought out badly situated and bullshit buildings popping up but i think the future is not all doom and gloom. the u2 tower will hopefully happen and there are other plans too that aren’t beyond the realms of possibility such as the tower opposite the u2 tower. and i think between these and westgate nerves might be calmed a little when people realise not all tall buildings are harbingers of dublins doom.
and while wer’e at it knock liberty hall and build something modern and aesthetically suitable to spar with the custom house!!!

@t.scott wrote:

one good side to all of this is at least the city has’nt been innundated with bollocks no-one wants to see built just so we can have a few monuments to money!!!

This of course is quite subjective. What is one man’s ‘bollocks’ might be another man’s groundbreaking erection, structurally speaking that is. Sometimes it is good to press the boundaries of the permissable and the acceptable – this is what gives the human race its momentum.

one other thing, i love the richard rogers tower for leadenhall street in london. i always thought something like that would have looked great in the ifsc by the water!!! could have set a great precedent…..

@t.scott wrote:

i get the impression that ABP tend s to react with a knee jerk rather than face the hassle of proving to opponents and detractors of schemes, the merits and benefits of such projects.

It’s the job of a developer, or his planning consultant, to make the case for a project. ABP won’t do it for you. It’s ABP’s job to adjudicate on matters where there’s disagreement between the two opposing sides and, though this is my subjective view, to represent the interests of the entire country rather than just a particular area.
In the case of Morehampton Road, while the locals may have been well organised, I’d be of the opinion that the building was very wrong in that situation- totally out of keeping with the character of the area, the preservation of which is a stated objective in the DCC Dev Plan.
Another reason for sending the tall ones (if we decide they are needed) to a more ‘blank slate’ area such as the docklands.

i dislike millunnium tower. it could do with a fresh coat of paint. i find it rather boring. i do accept that others might like it but it gets a thumbs down from me.

I’ve never quite seen what people find so wonderful about this building: pleasant yes, but outstanding – not quite…
It seems it was the best of a bad bunch that was going up 5/6 years ago (though miles ahead by all accounts); just the fact that so much developer dross was going up seemed to have made what is quite an average building stand out as something extraordinary. But certainly it’s much more attractive than some of the stuff being proposed at the minute.

It’s always funny so see people’s opinions of the Ulster Bank/One George’s Quay. So many utterly loathe it, while others think it’s the most beautiful building in the city – a glittering crystal palace of sorts. Not sure I’d quite go along with your “there’s no modern building in Europe which surpasses it” ake :eek:, but would agree that the glazing, initially the worst aspect of the building is now the finest element – really quite striking.

Though as one commentator noted upon its completion, the contrast with the Custom House across the river is incredibly cruel. Tall buildings don’t have to be within sightlines of other buildings to have a negative impact – George’s Quay’s massing across the river is quite horrible when one stands in front of the Custom House; it boths steals attention from Gandon’s building and casts a nasty shadow over the Liffey, not to mention over the Custom House itself during the winter when the sun is lower – something that’s never been mentioned.
As for the ubiquitous pyramids…..think the seven on the Ulster Bank is quite enough without Liberty Hall being subjected to one too! 😮

I was wondering about the Custom House drum only yesterday on that very point. How much would it cost to rebuild it in Portland stone today? Why wasn’t this done in the 80s considering how expertly it was conserved that time round? Even then vast quantities of Portland were imported to reconstruct the balustrade from scratch in place of the concrete put there post-1921, so why not the drum too?
Would it be possible to do a job similar to the National Museum restoration and literally render over the limestone with a Portland stone based render?
The dark limestone totally undermines the design of the building – indeed it could be argued the drum was detached enough already from the main body of the structure without being compounded with a rebuild in a different colour…
The fact that it’s an icky, dirty brown Ardbraccan rather than a neutral grey or blue variety adds insult to injury.

…i have always liked one georges quay plaza. i especially like looking at it from amien street. it can’t be seen when looking east from the quays as hawkins house is in the way. pitty.

@Boyler wrote:

I have to say that I was amazed when I saw City Hall in Dublin a few months ago. When I saw the building in photos, I thought it looked a little squat. I was totally unprepared in how big and beautiful it is in real life. It’s definitely one of my favourite buildings now!

You get a lovely view of it from Parliament St – one of my favorite streets in Dublin.

(c) Richie Devane

There’s a good shot of it in the Michael Collins movie too 🙂