Dublin skyline

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

Nice starting point for reasonable debate…calling holders of the opposite view idiotic.

I could equally express it as….

barrage of idiotic arguments for high rise: from the (false) claim that they would make Dublin a ‘modern city’, to the (equally false) argument that high rise buildings will increase density in Dublin, as if that were even the point.

How exactly is a low/medium rise city less open-minded?

Are you saying that architects cannot express contrast and sculptural effects in less than 15 storeys? Really?
http://thomasmayerarchive.de/details.php?image_id=86095&l=english

Equally, the uniformity of the rooflines of the grand Georgian terraces is part of their beauty, Without the need to ‘punctuate’ the skyline (god, I loathe that word)

Define substantial. That seems to be the crux of the debate….

Since you bring up the inevitable phallic allusion, is the frustration at the lack of high-rise expressed by the ‘we want it big and tall and now!’ brigade a primeaval fear of impotence? 😀

Ok, here goes:
1.Dublin is not a low/medium rise city, it is a low rise city. People are even afraid of medium rise. And it betokens an almost obsessive Victorian conservatism. I happen to think that medium/high rise makes up a good proportion of the modern architectural idiom, but apparently Dublin, with its grotty 1960s monstrosities and crumbling Georgians is above (or below) all that.
2. I didn’t say you can’t express contrasts in less than 15 storeys. But by limiting yourself to less than fifteen storeys you consequently limit the range of possible effects. I think a good modern city has a good mix of such effects, but Dublin is limiting itself to only one model.
3. Would you not call the Four Courts a punctuation? Or St. Stephen’s church?
4. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the “our buildings are bigger than your buildings” mentality. Competition is crucial to creativity. The fact is that most people in Ireland would like to have a gleaming capital city with great architecture and magnificent skyscrapers. It simply sends a message that anything others can do, we can do just as good. Yet we continue to treat Dublin as a provincial city, even as a town. It’s a capital city and it needs monumental over-the-topness.

For a start, the ‘Alto Vetro, Grand Canal Docks, Dublin’ thread is not the right place to continue this discussion!

. . . . out on the street with hurley sticks is the right place to continue this discussion.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0728/1224275614559.html

July 28, 2010
Developers to face high-rise curbs as council agrees plan

City councillors last night agreed to ban the construction of buildings above 28m (92ft) – about half the height of Liberty Hall – unless a statutory plan called a Local Area Plan (Lap) was drafted for the area in question. Such a plan could take several years to develop.

This would block the construction of any further high-rise or even medium-rise buildings in areas previously earmarked by the council for tall buildings such as the Docklands, Heuston and Connolly stations and George’s Quay.

LOL! :p