Dublin’s Ugliest Building

What about that pile of crap beside Christchurch. Red brick and a ridiculous clocktower – to make it ‘fit in’? Shopping centre style. I think there’s a company called DDFH&B in there.

Bewleys at Christchurch is a pile of lego too – anybody seen their branch on the Naas Road? HA HA Ha… that clock?!?!?! I think I’m going to be sick.

Actually, I wouldn’t call that an ugly building – more a stupid looking one. How about a ‘stupid looking’ category too?

John

Very good Paul – I always think of Noddy myself when I see that tripe. I do think a ‘Silly looking buildings’ section would be fun.

Oops, mustn’t lower the academic tone too much though! After all this is an excellent site as it is.

It’s funny . they tear down an actual ‘georgian’ or classical style structure in one place and put up and assemble a mock – georgian’ lego structure somewhere else. Do we not provide these rich gits with enough incentive to work with what’s already there when picking a business location – or is it just that they’re rich gits?

John

While Hawkins house was, of course , my first choice another big hitter in the crimes against art category would have to be the telecom building on Fitzwilliam street (lower?). Another candidate is the Trusthouse Forte hotel at the airport on account of ti’s overwhelming banality.

Ceann nach bhfaca mé anseo nó in ait ar bith eile e an foirgneamh uafasach atá os chomhair Ti an Chustaim ar bhruach na Life. Is le Ulster Bank an chruit mhór cramhach sin. Chan é go bhfuil an foirgneamh sin os chomhair Ti an Chustaim ach gurbh i bhfad bhfad ni b’fhearr a bhéadh sé dá mbeadh sé site in Estát Tionscail faoin tuaith. Feicim an ‘pile’ seo achan oiche agus cuireann sé deistin ‘s aifeala orm go bhfuil cruit chomh gránna le sin i lár na cathrach.

One I haven’t seen mentioned before is that awful pile across from the Custom’s House. It’s not its look but its site that defeats me. It would be grand in an out-of-town Industrial park but not in the middle of a city !

The Ulster Bank building on Georges Quay?

Is this the one on Beresford Place?

If so I have to agree its sterile blandness overwhelming, but the problem in my opinion is really the way it fails to engage with the city. On old maps, Beresford Place appears as a crescent focussing on the Customs House. This building both curves the other way and effectively barricades the IFSC from the rest of the city.

When the IFSC was originally designed, why didn’t it connect with the city centre instead of creating a suburban campus next to but isolated from it?

How about the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre – looks like a Mississippi Steamboat marooned on the green.

Top of my list for now is the new apartment building on Grand Canal Street, near (or on) the Bolands Mill site. In such a historic area this is a disgrace. It looks cheap and nasty and a year after completion is beginning to look ready for demolition. The only saving grace is that a large office block is now being built between it and the city.

I can still see it from the train though.

so many buildings, so little time.
1) the keyhole shaped petrol station across from arran quay is a dog of a building. 2)the virgin cineplex transplant from belfast is another contender: its sheer lack of respect for context and is an offence. what can you expect from a photocopy of someone else’s plan? 3) lucan.

Overweight civic offices, poor self-esteem, trapped in loveless relationship with transparent extension (intends to leave) would like to meet similar granite-clad piece of crap for fun and possible good times. Smoker preferred. Genuine offers only (has been hurt before).

The brightly lit building beside the Pepper Canister Church. Should be kept in darkness..
Designed by some crap architect who later described himself as a “Committed Modernist.” I presume that this means that he is a modernist who should be committed. We’re awful smart in this area of the city.

I agree with the suggestion of the Stephens Green Shopping Centre. It is twee,staid and uninspiring.

Anything that Bewleys or Jurys put their hands to these days….

how about:

ILAC shopping Center?

Bord Failte Baggot Street

Most of Lower Mount Street

The new hotel built just behind the Bleeding Horse on Camden Street.

This building has managed to totally ruin the old small street pattern whereby the Bleeding Horse was one of those fine Vitorian corener buildings. It now looks like a shrivelled appendix sticking out of a bloated colon, waiting for a swipe of the scalpel.

This is a sad, sad building.

The yokes on Harcourt Road? especially the precast concrete clad tower with the silly additions around the base to ‘improve’ it which McHugh O Cofaigh put on in the last decade

i think the pair of buildings on mount street which face each other – the bar with a sort of nightclub attached called “howl at the moon”, and the building which i think is by andrej wechert in a pseudo Gerogian style with a vomit of glass cascading from the roof and the oh-so-ironic free-standing granite columns at the the front door -really are the ugliest pair together. how the hell did they get permission for those neon lights all around the bar?

I have’nt been to Dublin for over a year but the building shown in some advertising that came with this weeks AJ looks pretty bad. Connaught House near St. Stephens Green by Arthur Gibney. Is it just as bad in real life ?

I haven’t seen any reference to the awful plastic faced Department of Justice building on St Stephend Green South. It’s a typical 1960’s utilitarian office block with no character whatsoever, and should figure in the list of Dubiln’s most hideous buildings

….and as I think about government buildings, how about the Revenue Commissioners office block bang in the middle of Dublin Castle ? – the first building that tourists see when they visit the Castle

Disagree. That building is a particularly fine example of modernist design – it’s its shambolic pseudo-gothic Victorian neighbours which are the problem.

The Arnott’s development on Abbey St. It dominates the historic if mutilated street, and destoys the old Lighthouse cinema. For good measure I would also throw in throw in the Royal Dublin Hotel at the top of O Connell St. It is just asking to be put down.

Although I voted for Hawkins House, which makes me nauseous every time I see it, I would also like to nominate O’Connell bridge house… because of its prominent position and its particularly dreadful appearance

I agree with Paul F. I’m surprised no one mentioned it before. Perhaps it is too ugly to even speak of but O’ Connell bridge House is an abomination. The architect should be horse-whipped publically.

Sorry, I forgot to add that I also think the keyhole shaped garage on the quays should be demolished. The glass was obviously designed to be as difficult as possible to clean and the expanses of plain red brick are clinical and boring.

Although the likes of Hawkins House and O’Connell Bridge house are unrelentingly awful, I find myself more incensed by more recently built stuff, such as the Woodchester building opposite Christchurch, or that Statoil garage on the Quays. Some of these buildings should be entered in evidence in the Flood tribunal to prove that planning in Ireland is corrupt – or at least inept.

Somebody recently built a new warehouse on my street (Bow Lane in Kilmainham) which boggles the mind with its blandness and unsuitability for the site. It consists of a four story high blank wall, which stretches for about a hundred metres, directly facing the blank wall of St Patrick’s hospital.

What is the explanation: corruption? drugs? sheer stupidity?

If anyone is familiar with the building I’ve desribed, I’d love to hear other peoples opinions on it.

As I said in an earlier post in relation to the Corpulent, Flabby, Leaden Ulster Bank Building on the Quay beside Tara St. Station I actually rather like elements of O’Connell Bridge House. The main problem seems to be in the facade facing the Bridge because of it’s cheap and boring looking windows.

Other than that I find it [especially from a distance – yes… ha ha..] quite graceful, suggesting upward and especially horizontal movement – rather like a great ship.

Some of you will probably say “Yeah, it should horizontally move itself a couple of miles east and not stop ’til it’s in a thousand feet of water”. But compared at least, to most of the other buildings mentioned so far in this thread it’s a flaming masterpiece.

I still say Hawkins House is the winner for displaying it’s horrendousness in such an obnoxiously large and imposing fashion.

Closely followed by a slew of other pathetic red-brick lego buildings.

J

I’ve seen that warehouse on Bow Lane, and the answer to Ryano’s question must be ‘drugs’ (acid? allowing people to see complex and beautiful shapes in the blandest of objects?). But the apartments near by going up towards IMMA are really bad (classic Dublin apartment building: tacky fake Victorian, ugly, look about to fall down).

I am convinced that Gandon house on Amiens Street (opposite Connolly) must be a prime contender both for its appearance and for naming such an execresance after James gandon. incidentally what do people think of what is unfolding at connolly-the galvinised sheets look like they are being recycled from a demolished British Army base in belfast! some peace dividend!

Let’s face it, was there anything shovelled into place during the precast concrete eras of the late 50’s-80’s that wasn’t horrendous?
There are honestly so many peurile modernist abominations in dublin that an ugliest building survey is somewhat of a waste. Why not just categorise by type or location? Shovel the whole of mount street and its ilk into one category, Liberty Hall/Busarse into another, Stephen’s Green South and the like into a third, and leave the rest named as Hawkins House.

At least of late dublin has been fortunate enough to have good buildings foolishly put in poor situations, where at least you have the comfort that they’d look good _somewhere_. A lesser evil, and some sign of progress.

What?!?!

That galvanised junk at Connolly station is permanent?

John

Sorry if I’m coming in late on this, but I only found the forum today. Many of the buildings mentioned are clearly hideous, inappropriate or simply thrown up with so little thought for their form or function. It seems obvious that anyone with enough basic common sense to cross the street unaided could see how bad these buildings are.

So, how did they get built in the first place? I like the idea of referring examples of poor architecture to the Flood tribunal. Since any competant lawyer could argue that taste is subjective, mere ugliness would not suffice. Inappropriate location might be better.

That would cover the broken teeth on Harcourt Road, or what about that elegant finial that closes off the leafy vista of Eglinton Road by finishing a line of 2-story semi-detached houses with an 8-story pile of brown sh…er, brick.

Perhaps we could have a competition to guess the total paid in bribes to achieve planning permission for various buildings?

I’ve failed to find anything more hideous thatn the US Embassy in Ballsbridge.

The US Embassy??? You must be joking – I think its great!

Whitehall Church. Also Donnycarney Church. Let’s not be confined to city centre.

In the spirit of categorisation, I feel P&T/ Telecom Eireinn should have a section all of their own. The main switch exchange on Wicklow St (D.2) shows an almost comical lack of context. Best viewed from the roof of one of our many fine multistorey car parks (why are they the only ‘public’ places offering a half decent rooftop vista?). The lack of scale sensibility is beyond belief. The multicoloured plastic cladding panels on the upper ‘box’ must be taking the mickey. The final crowning of an off centre radio mast strewn with various techno flotsam adds to the viewer’s mounting disbelief.

TE have many other fine structures on their books — there is a particularly uninviting little number on Fleet St. / Temple Bar –totally out of context, utterly repellant, and set off the terrace line of the street for added offensiveness.

Any other choice TE examples you can think of?

Hmmm… why is it set back further from the street?

Do you think it was so that CIE, when they converted temple bar to a bus depot could demolish everything else and widen the roads through it?

Not that there are many amazing structures on that street though.

J

Maybe Liberty Hall combined with the massive
chunk of metal spanning the Liffey, known as the Loop-line.
It looks like our city developers have not learned and continue to lack common sense.

How about the appaling Apollo House on Tara Street, or that red brick thing opposite it, absolutely everything on Lower Mount street, the gang of three on Harcourt Road. That building on Ushers Island that belongs to a lift company (another one set back for traffic) is particularly unappealing. Findlater house (Telecom Eireann) O’Connell Street, the (corporation?) office block on Wellington quay (you know the one that has a particularly nasty gate on essex street in temple bar). The old Irish Press building on Burgh quay. The extention to the telephone exchange in Temple Bar (Anglesea and Fleet street facades). Of course the worst has to be Hawkins House, but rumour has it that the building has “Concrete cancer” and will probably have to come down anyway. Yippee.
Am I the only one who thinks that O’Connell Bridge house is Okay (well if you cleaned it up and got rid of the Harp Bar)???

Hi Rory

Actually I’ve spoken up for O’Connell house a couple of times on this site.

Don’t you like the rail bridge over the Liffey? I love it. The piers remind me actually of the corner cloumn of Archer’s garage. I wonder…..

John

As John W’s reply demonstrates, there may be good things to say about any building, and therefore I think that this search for the ugliest Building in Dublin should be wound up.

First, it is not at all positive looking for the ugliest building – it’s like looking for the ‘sickist’ man in a hospital! I think that the fad for league-tables and such like is always highly tendentious, and since someone has to come last, it is always a loser’s prize.

Second, if one regards the urban fabric as a continuity, then buildings contribute to (and detract from) bigger entities – streets, squares, districts and so on, and such larger considerations can negate the woeful presence of many blots.

Finally, we all have to use and live in the city, so there is little to be gained by dumping on a particular area or street – we all might agree about the poverty of a certain area, and therefore enough said.

Far better to try to generate more inclusive criticisms of buildings and not encourage instant put-downs and dismissals, though one can appreciate the strength of feeling behind most of the denunciations in this forum.

If criticism was more detailed and urbanistic, perhaps developers and their protagonists in the design professions would think very hard about what they wish to do, and the Corp. could be encouraged to control matters with more confidence. So let’s drop the ‘Search for the `Ugliest Building in Dublin’ – after all, it’s really unworthy of your still fine city, and Archeire too.

I would like to nominate the ‘Harp Bar’ Building at the corner of D’olier’s Street and Burgh Quay. It hits you like a sudden bout of nausea as you look across the river from the North Side of O’Connell bridge.

I think its Guinness time it was pulled down.

Desos.

My top 3 has been for a while:
* Liberty hall (new)
* Dublin Corporation, Christchurch
* Central Bank on Dame Street
If the UN are ever to have one of their bombing campaigns here, please put these buildings on their hitlist.
After these I have to agree on that shoebox behind Screen Cinema and Harp bar. Before it’s even built I think any high-riser across from the Customs house should already be included. Anything over 7 floors in Dublin really. Just look at Rotterdam to see how things can go wrong.
Has anybody been blinded by the new architecture on the site of the old Jameson Distillery? Probably not. Blinded by reflecting sunlight from all those hideous silvery panels? Surely…. (I’ll go into build quality later if anyone’s interested).
Did anyone already mention Ballymun?

Guess this is enough for a first posting….

Duq

A word on LEGO here:
some of you seem to use Lego in a very negative way. As a Legoholic I can’t be happy about this. Please find another negative reference…..
Did you know Lego had some nice architecture sets in the sixties?

Duq

After 5 years abroad I came home to be utterly shocked by what has gone on!! Previous nightmares include the Central Bank, Liberty Hall, the Arts Block T.C.D. I had thought people had got it together…but alas no!! All these plans without substance. Take the Smithfield Project…enhancing the cultural and social history of Jameson while creating a living space for people in a historic site. Take a look at the construction and the square metre potential of people living there. The building is already crooked. Is this to be a weird crooked circle of the leaning Tower of Pisa? Also knocking the back of Mountjoy Square and creating a cardboard jungle?….Liberty Hall, Busarus, the top of Parnell Square-towards Mountjoy Square is now demolished. What do they plan on putting in place? What about retaining our dignity in Irishness and building and who the hell are these planners and what are they planning??? Watch this space for yet another ugly building. We not only have to look at these eyesores…we also have to live and work in them. Where’s the enthusiasm and atmosphere or is it the innocent bystander who only has to get a headache looking at them? Remember before an ugly building gets started people should have a say instead of nightmares appearing overnight that will taint us for centuries !(ha!Ha!..not likely with the lack of craftmanship)

I think the Regency Airport Hotel has got to rate a mention as one of Dublin’s ugliest buildings. I pass it twice a day and try not to look. Sometimes I’m caught unawares and experience a familiar nausea. It might escape being considered because of it’s location but that’s actually a real bonus. Imagine that pile of junk beside the Customs house. I think some of the buildings that are mentioned can be excused somewhat because they are functional as office blocks or whatever. How the architects came up with the Regency when asked to design a hotel though is beyond comprehension.

how about:
UCD
Trinity Smurfit Institute
Trinity O’Reilly Institute
Every Apartment block in Dublin

Any hotel between the airport and the city centre.

Somebody should close this stream.. it’s becoming banal and embarrassing

Hi Paul C

Any chance you could put all this info into a graph? It’d be interesting to see.

ie: O’Connell Bridge house
Nominated: #
Defended: #

Maybe it wouldn’t give a fair impression though. What d’you think?

John

It is important to see the apartment building opposite the Four Seasons on North King Street to have a real understanding of how bad Dublin architecture can get.

If this was described to someone with a very poor visualisation ability they might be tricked into believing that the building is a sensitive addition to a largely 18th century area – it has all the ingredients: brickwork, not too high a parapet, imitation sash windows (white), ‘feature’ buttressing. This must be what happened to the planner involved.

Please let everybody take a look at this recent building and swear – NEVER AGAIN.

Why does everyone damn Hawkins House so much….it is a fabulous building and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. It is a landmark…as dominant as Busarus and is valuable for its uniqueness and bravery of design in the current formulaic and blandness of design currently being churned out by the so called “respected” practices in the city. Any replys welcome

Nah, I reckon it’s revolting. All I can say in it’s favour is that I like he green tiles and pillars a la Liberty Hall and Busarus – big deal, and that the roof line has an interesting shape. But I’d still like to see it demolished.

It’s really horrible.

John

O Connell bridge house not just on appearance but the example it set.However are not all these ugly buildings apt architectual expressions of how we recent Irish have been conducting our public affairs? Assuming we dont want any more ugly developments,what about posting opinions about how to remedy the situation?

The ugliest building in Dublin is beyond the shadow of a doubt the average 3 bed semi, in “towns” (and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word) like Lucan, Clondalkin, Blanchardstown, Tallaght etc. They are truely awful (In the majority some older ones in areas like Terenure look good – Bushy Park road etc) but the majority are boring, White (invariably) with uniform everything, they destroy the soul. The entire greater Dublin Region (Now from Arklow to Drogheda, and west to Enfield & beyond) are blighted by miles of Rubbish Architecture, yes people have to live, but why in such mediocrity.

RORY W

what about that thing with the sculpture of a man climbing the side of it, or that hotel beside the canal as you’re leaving ranalagh.
ulster bank on the quays too. i don’t like the eircom offices either. the international bar is ugly as sin

busaras, in my opinion is one of dublins uglist buildings.

Yes, I can’t agree more!! It makes me sick every time I visit Dublin.

I could add a dozen buildings to the list but there going up all the time. There’s no point moaning about spilt milk. Turn all the interest in this discussion toward whats about to go up instead. Or lets climb that scaffolding around O’Connel Bridge house and start taking the building apart (my 1st).

Let’s close this banal and distressing forum down, as I proposed at length (people don’t seem to read longer pieces) some months back.

Editor – PLEASE intervene!

James McQuillan

You’ve just bread life into after it inactive for over a week, moan elsewhere.

The Rathfarnham Credit Union defies all belief. For such a prominent site, why it was built is a mystery perhaps only known to God. It has the same red brick template so beloved of the lazy minded but with a BLUE painted facade. When contrasted with Rathfarnham Castle, and situated at the brow of the hill rising from the Dodder it’s hideousness is breathtaking- Be careful not to crash the car.
The most appalling vista must be the loopline bridge downriver from O’Connell bridge. The advertisement hoarding spanning the bridge is an eyesore that belongs to another age. It takes advantage of the blocked view of the Custom House by justifying it’s existence as decoration. It’s overblown and unnecessary

after much deliberation, since there is so much to choose from, how about, in ascending order,
5.liberty hall
4.ebs westmoreland st.
3.that thing in christchurch that somebody else mentioned
2.burlington
1.the airport

But surely, datumdesign; The Customs House benefits greatly from the Railway Bridge in the same way that the Basilica Di San Marco in Venice and The Duomo in Milan benefit from one’s emergence on foot from the the Venice Correr Museum Loggia and the Milan Arcade, respectively?

An unexpectedly breathtaking vista opens before your eyes as break through into the open.

Paris on the other hand with it’s infinitely superior buildings suffers from it’s Imperialist ‘2 mile long straight streets’ arrangement. My the time you reach the building you’re shagged out and familiar with it. You’re made to feel small gradually, Speer approved of this idea.

I prefer the shock to the nervous system on first suddenly taking a structure in at once in all it’s staggering magnificence from close-up!

Ever visited the Pantheon?

John

After looking around I`ve found, in my option, Dublins ugliest buildings in random order:
ESB on Fitzwilliam Street(hopefully they sell it)
ESB on Westmoreland street
Hawkins house (to be revamped thank God)
Irish Life centre
Dun Laoghaire Shopping centre
That new office block at Liffey valley overlooking the N4
That row on mount street
Many office blocks in D4
to be contined……meanwhile i want to hear your comments. Thanks

Some of those Lego apartments along the Chapelizod road are just awful looking.

There are so many ugly bland and boring buildings that are too numerous too mention.

The Four Seasons Hotel in Ballsbridge is pretty horrendous in its own very special way

I think this is covered in the archives but no harm of a few additions/reminders:

1. Office block adjacent to Donnybrooke Bus Depot.
2. Park House sitting on its stilts along NCR near Hanlon’s pub (now this is a fine old bar / architectural Victorian gem.)
3. Hawkins House
4. Government (black cladded ,wire fenced / detention centre looking) central computer blocks (2 off) sitting on their stilts – off Memorial Road / Con Colbert Road.
5. Phibsborough shopping centre, Stalinist Architecture at its best.
6. Blooms (Costa del Sol) Hotel and associated balconies also West County Hotel.
7. Wood Quay Bunkers.
8. Ballymun Towers and St. Michael’s Estate. (presently under rejuvenation).
9. Housing in North Clondalkin and Darndale.
10.ILAC Shopping Centre.

01.What about Ulsterbank on Georges Quay and that po mo microcity growing up behind it?

02.That building beside citybank, to the east-jeasus brissssse solielarama (oh and citybank & everything else S.T.W have done in the last 10 years)

03.And as for the expanded semi-d style of apartements beside O’M-pikes nice tower on Charlotte Quay with the lovely pitched roofs, almost as if you were in liexlip/ashbourne/clane/naas….. only on a bigger scale. Are people who design this stuff actually taking the piss? (see also 90% other apt block in the city built in the last 10 years)

04. But who could have forgotten that lovely clock tower on the Jervis centre, d’ya know what but tis beautiful. it could have done with another dado rail below the clockface though!

05.And best of all that extension to the quays bar, on temple bar square and all it stands for! yahoo diddle di idle, dydle dum. da di dyddle dun di dee…..

06. But last and certainly not least, yes you guessed it……
—‘PHOENIX HOUSE’ at the south side of smithfield square, so good they dedicated the entire top floor to a massive plant room, so good the staff arent allowed to touch any windows in case it interferes with this beautiful feat of engineering, and sooooooo good they placed a silverish giant bald headed american eagle on the roof looking west, or is it actually a phoenix. I kid you not!!!!!!! You have to see it! if you laugh half as much as myself and my flatmate do everytime we pass it, it would be worth it.

“PHEONIX HOUSE” , Thanks pvdz I wondered what that….”yoke / ferry “….. was called.. all its missing is a funnel or two.. but it looks like its bearthed along the Liffey for ever.

[This message has been edited by Luke Gardnier (edited 03 April 2002).]

…if you’re ever in Wexford town there’s an architectural gem that should be preserved for the nation…a big sore looking yoke in red brick (i’m not sure what its supposed to compliment – there isn’t anything of that scale or material within 50miles), on the quays in front of the Talbot Hotel..”luxury apartment building”/juvinile detention unit..its a real country cousin to the many “brown envelope” developments in Dubliin

I used to work in Park House and although I wouldn’t say it is Dublin’s most attractive building, it certainly doesn’t deserve its places amongst the worst. As a building to work in, it was fantastic and the views from it are excellent. I also think it’s slightly coppered weatherbeaten look has actually improved it with age. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it’s not the worst example of that era by a long shot.

I agree Park House is not the worst example of a 70s office block but its location, monolithic design, singular function and domination of its surroundings in a mostly Victorian setting , leaves it totally out on its own and alien to the existing context.

No doubt its views from within are excellent but the view it presents to all who travel and live along the Victorian NCR is just another monolithic sore-thumb 70s lash up office block.

The pink copy of the Ansbacher Cayman Bank on Burlington Rd has to get it.

You can love or loathe modern interpretation but pastiche painted pink takes the biscuit.

what about that hideous hilton hotel on belfasts waterfront….brash and dirty with its turquoise widow frames…obviously another seafaring reference…

I’m not so sure about Belfasts Hilton, I think that it is no worse than Jury’s on Custom House Quay. The first hotel in an area that is being developed primarily for tax incentives tends to be a little lego-landish.

The above still has it 😡

How dare you insult Lego with such associations Diaspora!

God it’s repulsive, it’s as if the architect was playing a joke – how can I design the worst house possible and get away with…
Hmmm, how about I build a mock up of one of Palladio’s creations, slap on a few pilasters, render the infill panels pink for that extra Italinate touch, clash that with some blue limestone window surrounds, introdunce further clutter with black modern PVCs upstairs, rusticate the ground floor for that ‘two fingers to the public’ aspect, tack on security camera on every corner, and crown it all off with a nice big 80s Miami beach semi-circular window…
I bet It’s floodlit at night too so we can appreciate it 24/7.

The AT&GWU building on Middle Abbey Street. Opposite Arnott’s car park.

God, where to begin…..

The Irish Life building.
The original Ilac.
The Q Building in Blanch, gross and very cheap looking.
Forget the name, but that 10 (or so) storey building on the Grand Canal, by Lad Lane….hideous
Bus Aras (obviously)
Hawkins House. Nuff said
Fingal County Offices on O’Connell Street. pleh.

But my all time favourite ugly building is, well are…
The whole stretch of them from that stupid Statoil on the quays all the way up to the brewery…all of them…especially that horrible prefab looking yoke. Knock em down and start again please. Shameful.

Im morto about being from Dublin when I walk or drive people by that stretch. I usually intrigue them into a fictional story about anything that reqires fixation on my face for however long it takes to clear them from vision…shockin.

@electrolyte wrote:

God, where to begin…..

Forget the name, but that 10 (or so) storey building on the Grand Canal, by Lad Lane….hideous
Bus Aras (obviously)

You mean this gem http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/wilton_place/goulding.html

And Michael Scotts masterpiece 😮

Yep, thats the one….It makes me ill to look at it!

I know they recently did it up….ha!….and while I hate it, I do believe its salvagable, it could be turned into something quite cool…im thinking along these lines, bearing in mind, there aint much to work with…

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=9407&papass=&sort=1

Unfortunately the scale of the building you have referred to is inappropriate and if Fitzwilton House were altered in line with your proposal it would have a detrimental impact on the Fitzwilliam Square ACA a higher site coverage would be bringing the bulk back towards Numbers 18-25 Fitzwilliam Place. Given that most of the renovations within Fitzwilton House are of a recent nature and that it is of a very high standard with an excellent tenant base it is probably best left alone.

yeah, shame though, huh…

@electrolyte wrote:

Yep, thats the one….It makes me ill to look at it!

I know they recently did it up….ha!….and while I hate it, I do believe its salvagable, it could be turned into something quite cool…im thinking along these lines, bearing in mind, there aint much to work with…

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=9407&papass=&sort=1

I think that City Point Tower is totally out of character with that part of London. Sure it’s tall and has a wow factor but all highrise in London should have been confined to somewhere like The Docklands. It’s reminds me of Centre Point Tower; tacky and just adds to London’s badly planned mishmash of highrise here and highrise there.

I’m all in favour for highrise in Dublin but not in the historical centre, and certainly not in Fitzwilliam. Too late for the Dublin Docklands so I don’t know what will happen in the future. I’m guessing Dublin will end up much like London: towers dotted randomly around the greater Dublin area.

Fitzwilton House is interesting. By its design you wouldn’t think it was 13 floors high, maybe more like 6. Deliberately and deceptively lowrise in appearance, I’m sure this helped its planning approval.

this house.

😮

I’m guessing you have to look at that every day given your own house’s similarity?!

Out of all the ‘ugly building’ threads over the years and newspaper articles and all the rest, there is one building that has never ever cropped up. It is close to a building that often features, i.e. Dublin Airport’s 1960s terminal building, but is never mentioned itself.

And it is of course – Aer Lingus Head Office 😮

Welcome to Ireland.

@ConK wrote:

this house.

😀 What the hell is that!

And where the hell is that!
Looks suspiciously like Pearse Street (or vicinity) in Dublin. Am I way off the mark?

Portland Street North, NCR. I think it has the highest incident of Georgian/1960’s improvements mutations in the city. It is a veritable wonderland of renovation. 😉

Rather than the usual suspects I would be interested to hear all your opinions on the Top 10 (or whatever) ugliest NEW builds in the city. I mean buildings which have gone up since 2000. Celtic Tiger ugliness is what Im after.

Here are some contributions:

The Capel Building – Dublin’s latest planning horror
The Laughter Lounge – haha very funny
The Ivy Exchange – check out the latest dross on Parnell Street

The Ulster bank on Georges Qy (the quayside phase 1 of this project not the pyramid topped part)
Citibank IFSC
The new building on Eden Qy (laughter lounge?) at least it’s a relief to see it’s not only provincial Ireland that dross can happen to high profile locations.
The Cosgrave development on corner of Barrow St and Grand Canal St – Worst. Apartment. Scheme. Ever!

Yep – the cladding is in an appalling condition now too.

I’m going to be greedy here and choose ugly buildings!!

Personally I think that the Quays west of O’Connell bridge on both sides of the liffey should be mostly levelled. On the Northside everything up to and beyond the four courts should be destroyed and rebuilt as something more befitting a city and not that of a provential town. They are an embarrassment to an otherwise architecturally impressive city. Of the Southside quays I’d destroy practically everything. This area has no achitectural merit what so ever. The buildings are bland and falling to pieces and when you compare this area with say college green or O’Connell street they have a decidedly provencial feel to them.

And before the “Dublin’s the capital of a small country” and “buildings should reflect that” brigade start banging on, Dublin with a third of the population of the Republic of Ireland is completely different and in many ways alien to the rest of the country in temrs of its urbanity. Belfast isn’t even half the size and locals refer to it as a big place. I think a lot of this attitude is a throw back to Dev’s identification of urbanity as being alien to the Irish ethos and thus explains the need some people feel to play down this unigue urban identity.

Deza – if you are going to commit suicide, nothing like doing it in style. Ireland needs people who are willing to speak their minds no matter the public reaction.

@deza wrote:

I’m going to be greedy here and choose ugly buildings!!

Personally I think that the Quays west of O’Connell bridge on both sides of the liffey should be mostly levelled. On the Northside everything up to and beyond the four courts should be destroyed and rebuilt as something more befitting a city and not that of a provential town. They are an embarrassment to an otherwise architecturally impressive city. Of the Southside quays I’d destroy practically everything. This area has no achitectural merit what so ever. The buildings are bland and falling to pieces and when you compare this area with say college green or O’Connell street they have a decidedly provencial feel to them.

And before the “Dublin’s the capital of a small country” and “buildings should reflect that” brigade start banging on, Dublin with a third of the population of the Republic of Ireland is completely different and in many ways alien to the rest of the country in temrs of its urbanity. Belfast isn’t even half the size and locals refer to it as a big place. I think a lot of this attitude is a throw back to Dev’s identification of urbanity as being alien to the Irish ethos and thus explains the need some people feel to play down this unigue urban identity.

Well said. I am refering to the last paragraph.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

Yep – the cladding is in an appalling condition now too.

Actually thats not the Aer Lingus Head Office Building (HOB) but I think is (or was) known as the Technical Building or something like that. The HOB is the buidling directly in front of you as you exit the main car park in front the original Airport Hotel. If I remember correctly the Technical Builsing was refurbished sometime in the 90s so the cladding here obviously has not stood the test of time terribly well.

Thanks for that Veronnex – I recongise the distinction now. The Head Office is definitely the worse of the two, and is much larger I think. Truly one of the worst buildings ever built in the State – and for the national airline of all institutions :rolleyes:
That wouldn’t have been tolerated in the 1930s.

More ‘interesting’ than ugly?

@StephenC wrote:

Here are some contributions: The Capel Building – Dublin’s latest planning horror
The Laughter Lounge – haha very funny
The Ivy Exchange – check out the latest dross on Parnell Street

Bad and all as these buildings are, I see them more as missed opportunities rather than ugly buildings per se.
I have been endlessly critical of the redevelopment of Parnell Street, but mainly in the sense that it could have been something special considering it has been redone practically from end to end.
Even the worst of all these buildings, the apartment complex next to the Parnell Ilac entrance, isn’t a patch on something like Hawkins House or Apollo House.
The Capel Building would, as said before, be better suited to an out-of-town business park and the Laughter Lounge is just plain boring. Same goes for the Ivy Exchange.

@Punchbowl wrote:

More ‘interesting’ than ugly?

Certainly not ugly. I’ve a great fondness for that whole Lombard Street West area (that is it, no?), much of which is based on the ‘variations on a theme’ feel of the different streets. The original buildings were subtly different, and many of them have been further altered with such features as this bay window. I wouldn’t usually argue from this point of view, but in the case of Portobello and environs I think it’s a cornerstone of the character of the area. (Though I could do with less PVC and aluminium, obviously. 🙂 )
If that’s your ‘hood, Punchbowl, you’re a lucky old so-and-so.

Never liked Raheny’s 1950’s church: right ugly. Can’t find pictures online though.

I think the new apartment block on Ormond quay , It is so ugly and rigid , with the usual red brick and post modern type block of shite.
the building has the most ridiculous match boxs balconies , Taht gives me the impression they were superglued on .
It makes me shiver and stare away from view!

Its ruining the area, Some might like it but , just look at it twice and see the other older red brick apartements that are fairly modern, You’ll notice the new apartements just don’t fit in? any support on my views????
the older buildings have a bit of base and orginality to the buildings,(although are a bit on the boring side too) and seem to blend in , while that heap of crap.
While that new red brick development is out of the butt, its totally unnacepteble , given the site and location!
to let the developers get away with building that building.
my overall impression in a shortned sence , is

A typical bliing bling site, trying to build a bling bling building and failed with high expactations! and reminds me of a cheap building.

Sorry for the use of hard language.

Has anyone mentioned the huge statoil garage on the South Quays, surrounded by a block of apartments – think it’s called Viking Harbour or something?

Ugggh, shudder. Suppose when it went up in the 80s that ‘classic’ yellow roof was the only ray of sunshine in the area, if it’s any excuse…

Where/what is this notorious Capel St building everyone always mentions – I’ve even gone out of way on two occasions while in the area to have a look! Where is it?!

the one I’m thinking about is just across the river from the Statoil garage and on Ormond quay I think,
Its only after popping up in the last few months

Aaah yes! i mused, stroking my chin – the old garage canopy disguised as a ray of sun shine trick – Genius! Definately a product of the most desperate of desperate times. And what about the 4 mock georgian blocks on Gardiner St. that seem to, almost, somehow magically hover above their underground carparks – who knew those Georgians could have inspired such brilliance.

The Capel St building is a new 5/6 storey pile on the corner with Mary’s Abbey (I think that’s what is being talked about), just beside the luas line, it’s brown, which has some interesting connutations!

Dave, is it not a bit further up near the Calatrava Bridge.
There is a new one that has ads for Bargaintown in the empty retail units at the bottom and I’m wondering if that’s what you’re talking about. Again, I wouldn’t consider it a bad building – just another missed opportunity along the quays. The one I’m thinking of is actually of far higher standard than many of the existing apartment blocks.
I can’t recall any new developments on Ormond Quay except for the extension to the Morrison Hotel.

Kefu , thats the one at bargaintown,

I can’t beleive you aprove that building beside Bargaintown, ahhhh its boring compared to some new apartements and taking into account high profile quay site 😡

Sorry it just another bland development.

I don’t approve of it at all and agree with most of what you said. It’s bland but it’s not terrible and is certainly a lot better than its neighbours on Ellis Quay.
This all goes back to the post I made on the last page. I see all of these bland – but not strictly ugly – developments as terrible missed opportunities.
It will probably be another fifty years before we get another crack at the Quays after making such a mess of it this time.
The same goes for the likes of Parnell Street and Mountjoy Square.
Most unfortunately, we’re seeing the exact same thing happening on Capel Street, which in many ways is my favourite street in Dublin.
If people think the Capel Building is bad, the new development diagonally across from it is actually much worse. However, none of them stand comparison with the abominations inflicted on the city in the 1960s.

I agree totally

And the problem is like you said they will be back to the drawing boards , where the “slums of the future” that were built and then will be knocked and started again from scratch.

The question is do we learn from these mistakes, and alllow developers build cheap apartements wherever they think is neccessary. This trend and scake of this is alarming,

adding on or two floors when not on the plan
building developments that enhance and don’t have any resemblave to the area,
crammed up on top of one another.
quality of these apartement blocks in some areas are absaloutely degrading.

and so on….

planners and arcitects and more thought through developments should not allow monopolising developers take there spot.

Is it this building?

Have to say I like it 🙂
The elevations are very flat alright, and the brick too expansive in some places – but the material is kinda cool I think in that colour…
Saying that the red brick book-ends are a ridiculous contrivance – ‘oh how amusing, brick comes in this colour too’ :rolleyes:

Is this the site that I think Stephen C described before as having a decent collection of ‘no nonsense Victorians’ ?

That site has been derelict for years. it used to depress me. i like thiat building too. But knock down Statoil please!

Walking into Capel St past the ‘Malton Building’ it’s that building’s equivilant on the corner site of the next junction – the corner of Strand St.
Another view that might put it in context:

Lol, when wil yer blonde moments settle, the one kefu and I were discuccing was the red brick building right on the quay a bit upstream from the Four courts at bargaintown just near the new bridge, Iguess the site was just a piece of scrub before they built , its still vacant
that should give you a better description 🙂
, not sure of the name of the quay 🙂

BTW

a good pic you posted Graham,

And i think the building is not spectecular , but rather more unique and different to some other bland apartments blocks

Out of 10 , i’d give it six!

let’s all rate it 🙂

The building Dave is referring to is on Ellis Quay. If you drive across the Calatrava Bridge from the south quays, you’ll get a very good view at it. I had another look at it last night and it is actually significantly better than the Zoe-type slums all along that stretch of quays.

And for the sake of clarity, the building that Graham has posted pictures of is not the Capel Building but the one diagonally across the junction from it. Think it’s called Church something or other.
Graham, if you are back there, do a 180 degree about-turn and the Capel Building will be in front of you. It’s actually got a huge footprint and encompasses practically everything between Little Strand Street, Arran Street, Mary’s Abbey and Capel Street.
And just as a handy hint for people, this site includes a terrifically detailed map of Dublin. You just keep zooming in: http://www.map24.com/

Yes it’s a terrible yoke – indeed I had to back into its nasty roller shutters to take the pic of the building above!
If there’s time I’ll get it again, just didn’t bother on the day because, well, as stated by many it’s not exactly worthy of attention!

I remember the derelict site the above building is on now — it was surrounded for years by palisade fencing wasn’t it?

I remember the derelict site the above building is on now — it was surrounded for years by palisade fencing wasn’t it?

Thats the one.

I’m not overly gone on it and suspect it would have looked better as a drawing.

It is however a very fair attempt and a lot of thought obviously went into it. If the Balconies were eliminated and the portland stone element scaled up it would have worked much better in my opinion. But it is refreshing to see someone trying to do too much as opposed to too little for a change. It shouldn’t be on this thread

Phibsboro shopping centre is minging

@Thomond Park wrote:

It shouldn’t be on this thread

Certainly. The choice of brick I think was quite brave, with the average developer jumping for the usual bales of shiny red Kingscourt. It’s an elegant choice that will stand the test of time. The building is nicely proportioned and the corner is well pronounced. The wooden balcony rails pictured are just temporary.

I’m guessing it reminds everyone somewhat of the Community Resource Centre in Smithfield 🙂

There were mixed views on this before here…

But that is the render and not the actual building.

Typical architects image with the material contrast much more stark than the finished product not to mention the lack of gridlock. Having said that an honest image would have still acheived planning in that case.

@kefu wrote:

And just as a handy hint for people, this site includes a terrifically detailed map of Dublin. You just keep zooming in: http://www.map24.com/

How do you move around this site or is it paid access only?

The big heap beside Hanlon’s pub on the NCR – Park House I think they call it – a great example of 70s sitting on stilts architecture.

My vote for ugliest building(s) would have to be Nassau Street: the Kilkenny Centre, Blarney Woolen Mills, the two buildings at the corner with Dawson Street (beside what used to be Judge Roy Bean’s but is now yet another Porterhouse). It is a terrible collection of buildings, especially so close to Trinity and Grafton Street…Imagine the impression it creates for all those tourists getting off the buses to go and see the Book of Kells.
Also, I know it’s a little off-topic, but since I mentioned the Porterhouse here, what do people think of this kind of ‘chain-pub’ emerging in Dublin? There are four that I can think of right now: two in the city centre (Temple Bar and Nassau Street), one in Glasnevin and one in Bray. They already have this kind of thing in the UK with JD Wetherspoons and the like. For my money, I don’t think its a particularly welcome development. (And I don’t really like the beer either!)

This is the offending thing referred to earlier, at the junction of Capel St. and Mary’s Abbey

This truly is a hideous building. And to think Ivan the terrible poked out the architects eyes for creating the glory of St. Basils so he couldn’t top it elsewhere – I wonder what he would have done to the if this was produced.

I was watching it being erected – its so big and long – taking up nearly a whole block. Truly a terrible facade and so 1980’s dark windows.

I was amazed this went ahead; its so diesrespectfull to an area with such fine grain.

Well whatever about the rights and wrongs of pub chains, the Porterhouse did an amazing job restoring the art deco garage they now occupy in Glasnevin. I’d forgive them most things after that.
We already have chains of pubs in one way, where one publican owns seven or eight places around Dublin. And they all serve the same beers as well.
If anything, the Porterhouse chain is offering a bit of diversity compared to what else is available.

Next time you’re walking along Liffey Street, stop and have a good look at No 12 (Gamestop). The facade from first floor up is beyond belief. I don’t know that they could have been thinking about at the time.

@thewillow wrote:

Next time you’re walking along Liffey Street, stop and have a good look at No 12 (Gamestop). The facade from first floor up is beyond belief. I don’t know that they could have been thinking about at the time.

Liffey street on the whole is a bit of a mess as is the Lotts behind Batchelors Quay, hopefully Arnotts redvelopment will greatly improve the area

Surely the Central Bank has to be Dublin’s most visible eye-sore: when I left Ireland in the early 80’s there were girders sticking out from beneath its roof that would have made your average DIY man blush. A Hodge-Podge effort was then made to cover this up in later years with a kind of metal sarcophagus similar to the one that currently covers the reactor in Chernobyl!
That Bunker “for want of a better word” beside Christ Church also figures up there among the most ugliest; in 1984 it already looked the worse for wear and it was then only a couple of years built!

As a beer fan, I can honestly say that the Porterhouses are among the best pubs in Dublin, so lets not have any more Porterhouse Bashing. This is an architecture forum.

I think the ugliest building in Dublin is probably Oisin House on Pearse St.
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/pearse_street/oisin.html
And I know a lot of people here hate it, but I personally really like O Connell Bridge house.

hawkins house – enough of the abuse – it’s a testament to the era lets keep it forever! i call for a preservation order on it!

ugliest building(s) – what about just of all of suburbia – practical but creating generations of kids with no knowledge of design?

I think it is time to update this thread with a new entry for the title of Dublin Ugliest Building.

And my nomination is the new Palace Street ‘HQ Office Building’, beside city hall.

The reason why I’m nominating this building, apart from it being very ugly, is the fact that it is brand new. Now Hawkins House is really ugly, but it’s been around a few years now. How is this build going to look in 20 to 30 years time? :rolleyes:

Due to the thread ‘New building beside City Hall’ which has now turned into the discussion how ugly it is, I feel its more fitting to move the subject here.

Let’s face it – aren’t there a lot of crap Georgian and neo Georgian buildings in Dublin – are they ugly? What is an ugly building? Shouldn’t Dublin grow up and up and up, get more glass and class!

Now that is one cool building!

😮 That building would be better suited along side the VLT telescopes on the mountains of Chile or with the giant Keck telescope in Hawai!@weehamster wrote:

I think it is time to update this thread with a new entry for the title of Dublin Ugliest Building.

And my nomination is the new Palace Street ‘HQ Office Building’, beside city hall.

The reason why I’m nominating this building, apart from it being very ugly, is the fact that it is brand new. Now Hawkins House is really ugly, but it’s been around a few years now. How is this build going to look in 20 to 30 years time? :rolleyes:

Due to the thread ‘New building beside City Hall’ which has now turned into the discussion how ugly it is, I feel its more fitting to move the subject here.

Jurys to sell off Burlington hotel
January 24, 2007 14:41
Announcing strong annual results today, Jurys Hotel Group said it was selling the Burlington Hotel in Dublin and planned to invest €200m in its hotels and on acquisitions.

Jurys said it has appointed commercial agents CBRE to sell its Burlington Hotel site in Dublin, in order to release funds so the group can re-invest in premium hotels and expand internationally.

The group said the sale is expected to take a number of months and the hotel will remain open throughout 2007.

‘The value of the property has appreciated significantly in the past twelve months, particularly in the light of a recent transaction in the area,’ it said. A neighbouring site owned by insurer Allianz was sold for €100m.

Jurys also said it plans to invest over €200m in its existing assets including the Westbury, Jurys Kensington, Jurys Clifton Ford, Jurys Great Russell Street and Jurys Bristol, as well as on new purchases in key international cities.

Following the acquisition of the Group in late 2005, Jurys was re-structured into two divisions- a premium hotels business and an Inns business.

The group said thatthe Inns business, which is now in 20 city centre locations in Ireland and the UK, continues to trade strongly, with a significant pipeline of additional Inns planned in the UK and Europe.

Ms Bernie Gallagher, Chairman of JDHA, said the decision to sell the Burlington site was a difficult one but the significant investment the hotel would need, and the current value of the site, ultimately influenced the decision.

She added that the proceeds of the Burlington will enable the Group to achieve its objectives and expand internationally.

‘Our strategy is to firmly position the hotels in the Group at the premium end of the markets in which they operate and we are committed to invest accordingly. We also plan to accelerate the roll-out of the Inns’, she said.

Of that period of development the Burlington was certainly a canidate

Good to see it is going

It looks like another canidate is about to go

Superquinn owners buy Montrose Hotel
Monday, 19 February 2007 08:07
The number of large hotels on the south side of Dublin city continues to decline with news that the owners of Superquinn have bought the Montrose Hotel.

According to press reports over the weekend, the owners of the supermarket chain have agreed to buy the Montrose Hotel in Stillorgan, Dublin, from Jurys Doyle for more than €40m.

The Montrose hotel had been underperforming and was put up for sale by the Jurys Doyle group. The company recently decided to put the Burlington Hotel on the market. It has already sold Jurys in Ballsbridge and the Berkley Court to property developer Sean Dunne.

AdvertisementSelect Retail Holdings, which purchased Superquinn in August 2005, plans to build a new supermarket and apartments on the site of the hotel, according to weekend newspaper reports.

Heheh – a double spread of pictures of Dublin’s ‘ugliest’ buildings. It’s quite witty, and oddly well informed…
Ironically O’Connell Bridge House has a decidely flattering photograph, while Robocop or Hawkins don’t feature at all. Some astute observations include the Recency Airport Hotel (now pasted in salmon pur

Ahhh :). Where and when?

It’s a big centre spread just with pictures and captions, claimed to be part of an online poll :confused:
I only saw it cause someone’s collecting coupons. Honest!
:
Buildings featured (in no particular order) are:

O’Connell Bridge House
One George’s Quay Plaza
Ilac Centre
Dunlin Airport 1960s Terminal
Trinity Arts Block
Regency Airport Hotel
American Embassy
Central Bank
Phibsboro Centre
Civic Offices
Oisin House
Irish Life Centre
Stephen’s Green Centre
Bord F

Graham, most hotels worth their salt have CHP’s. They’re quite common, you could even replace your gas boiler at home with one if so desired.

So looking at the list above I take it anything built of conrcete is fair game…?

Ahh, did they slam the Rathfarnam Credit Union? Poor thing – leave her alone!

😀 That’s tragic!

Pure concrete fantasy
Makes you wonder what they would think of the above

@PVC King wrote:

Pure concrete fantasy
Makes you wonder what they would think of the above

I believe that’s a listed building now… a classic

@alonso wrote:

I believe that’s a listed building now… a classic

List 2 I believe;

What the image fails to display is its slender nature which really makes along with the lived in quality added by the external washing lines.

And like Busaras it always seems to feature at about no. 10 in both the best and worst buildings polls.

I’m sure it has already been nominated (such a long thread and soo little time..) but all my money is on River House beside the Four Courts. For its intrinsic awfulness and for its contextual awfulness. It’s awful.

@PVC King wrote:

Pure concrete fantasy
Makes you wonder what they would think of the above

PVC King: I hope you are not against Goldinger’s Trellick Tower somehow, it is a fantastic building; also, an interesting lesson since people have learned to love it since they introduced decent caretaking and surveillance.

So long as architects are actually prepared to live in it!

@johnglas wrote:

So long as architects are actually prepared to live in it!

tosh

Your usual level of argument, JL?

@johnglas wrote:

So long as architects are actually prepared to live in it!

Goldfinger did live on the top floor of the Trellick Tower!

Good try, Rory W, but buildings can’t be designed for the ‘lower orders’; the reason why penthouses are cool is because the rich can afford to stuff them with gadgets and compensate otherwise for the loss of immediate amenity space (and they can adopt ‘Lord of the Universe’ isolation). The poor can’t do that, which is why so many urban ‘projects’ fail.

I always figured public housing projects mostly fail/failed, because, for one , peope have no sense of pride or ownership when they are just handed the keys to their almost free home, and second , when entire housing estates or towers were filled with lower income or poorer families they are, as far as i can see , breeding grounds for criminal activity in one form or another.
Of course i would never paint everyone and everywhere with the same brush, but by and large i think this seems to be the case

paul h; Mrs Thatcher is in her 80s and virtually senile, you know. Where do you think the middle classes get their money? By setting the rules and milking the poor of course. When it comes to criminality, the bourgeois can show the poor how to do it on a massive scale and get away with it. Brown envelopes, anyone? Offshore accounts? Well, you did read the small print, didn’t you?

Anyone can make it.
You need balls and brains. (and luck)
Maybe im just naive:D

Or vindictive, or anti-social (‘There is no such thing as society.’), or deluded. Balls, brains … and skin colour?
Why have all presidents and vice-presidents of the USA been Wasps? (Except one and they assassinated him.) Look at the current crop of senators – real tribunes of the people. Sorry, paul h, but not anyone can make it.

Good try, Rory W, but buildings can’t be designed for the ‘lower orders’; the reason why penthouses are cool is because the rich can afford to stuff them with gadgets and compensate otherwise for the loss of immediate amenity space (and they can adopt ‘Lord of the Universe’ isolation). The poor can’t do that, which is why so many urban ‘projects’ fail.

You couldn’t be more wrong from what I saw of the recent (within the last year) documentary about or featuring this particular tower. Plenty of people living there who were certainly not rich but enjoyed living there and were proud of the building. The attempt to provide suburban social housing has failed even more miserably in Ireland so I don’t believe the overall form of the archictecture dictates whether such schemes fail or succeed. To be honest, it’s a pretty bizzare idea that some types of accomodation are only suitable for the rich.

Really? Is that why so many developers evade providing 20% social housing in, say, Ballsbridge (‘they just wouldn’t fit in’). As I understand it, much of Dublin’s Georgian housing stock declined when the rich moved out and the poor moved in, precisely because the building form was unsuitable. Here in Glasgow, tenements were purpose built for all classes up to about the First World War. By modern standards, many were deemed to be poor quality and were demolished (although many could have been saved), but those that remain are amongst the most sought-after housing in the city, significantly, mostly in middle-class areas. Tenements in working-class areas that were saved (through social housing associations) are still predominantly working class and, where sold, fetch much lower prices.
It is possible to rescue residential high-rises in ‘poor’ areas but only by dint of intensive concierge and housing-management services and by a rigorous policy of tenant selection (and then where do the rejected go?), but even here these schemes rarely attract higher-earning tenants. Many British high-rises were sold to councils as a cheap, high-density ‘solution’ to housing problems in the 60s and 70s; they were neither cheap nor dense and really were all about enriching manufacturers – they have presented a problem ever since.

The real question is has there ever been a succesful social housing project anywhere? If so, how come that succeeded, while most others failed?

@Blisterman wrote:

The real question is has there ever been a succesful social housing project anywhere? If so, how come that succeeded, while most others failed?

er-I grew up in one, am sure a few other posters on here have too.

Whereabouts, and what type if you don’t mind me asking?

@Blisterman wrote:

Whereabouts, and what type if you don’t mind me asking?

1950s built estate in Dun Laoghaire- Had its problems but nothing major in my eyes-suppose I am from an era when artisan families still got social housing- In fact all social housing in DL could be considered a ‘success’ IMO- notwithstanding some typical societal problems involving drugs and crime-due to their proximity to wealthier, mixed use and recreational areas. That was the major problem with all the westside corpo housing built from the 60s onwards-no opportunities for the proles to mix with the posho crowd out in Blanch and Tallaght.

There are many examples all over Scotland – the most ‘successful’ (how do you measure that?) are those built on ‘Garden City’ principles in the 1920s and 30s, the least succesful the aforementioned high-rises and a lot of more cheaply systems-built tenements from the late 1930s. The peripheral schemes built in the 1950s have declined and become undesirable because of (a) poor estate management, (b) rigid tenure policies and (c) the devastating effects of Thatcherism in the 1980s.
There is a disturbing trend on this thread of sheer prejudice against the poor. All you middle-class boys need to get out more. The leafy gardens and lace curtains of suburbia conceal a multitude of social ills – but they look nice. Those who ‘succeed’ economically often do so by climbing over others and never looking back. The Mafia is a good example of capitalism and free enterprise applied to criminality.

I almost forgot – what about all the schemes built by Bord na Mona in the 1930s? They look pretty good to me and in terms of layout and design are streets ahead of most boring suburbs.

I used to hate driving into Rochfortbridge for this reason, on one side you had a BnaM development, charming terrace or well-built well-designed housed layed out logically, the other a field scattered with ugly semi-d’s: what had gone wrong between then and now? Luckily Rochfortbridge is now bypassed.

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

Do you have a personal choice for Dublin’s ugliest building?

If so, post here as I intend adding a new section to Archeire featuring the most hated buildings.

My personal choice is Hawkins House.

whats the bluish building there in the front

@lostexpectation wrote:

whats the bluish building there in the front

Used to be the old Irish Press HQ – Ghastly wasn’t it? Substantially less offensive once it was reclad with stone to appear as if it is a different building 🙂

Hawkins-Poolbeg-Tara-Townsend is the worst city block in Dublin. Truly stunning in its decrepitude.

Nothing less than wholesale demolition will solve the problem.

@hutton wrote:

Used to be the old Irish Press HQ – Ghastly wasn’t it? Substantially less offensive once it was reclad with stone to appear as if it is a different building 🙂

Garda Immigration Bureau. Or at least that’s who’s on the bottom floor.

anymore pics of before, it can’t find any

@lostexpectation wrote:

anymore pics of before, it can’t find any

Some over at fjp http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/kf/aerial/index02.html

thanks but those pics are in b+w i want to see its blueness, can’t even find who made it.

good example of liberty halls black windows by day there though

Strange, I thought the bomb which was the cause of the original windows being replaced pre-dated the electrfication of the railway line?:confused:

@lostexpectation wrote:

thanks but those pics are in b+w

In that case you should have asked Morlan to switch on his mind-reading function. :rolleyes:

Seriously, a bit of gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.

So many awful and ugly buildings in Dublin…..kinda hard to pick one.

BTW, that Tivoli music hall was a gem. Damn the auld bastards who demolished it. Another fine bit of the city lost forever.

@ctesiphon wrote:

In that case you should have asked Morlan to switch on his mind-reading function. :rolleyes:

Seriously, a bit of gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.

thanks but those pics are in b+w

I said it, i meant it, f off out of it.

Oh dear. It looks as if the city was carpet bombed. In fairness, it’s easy forget the abject dysfunction that pervaded vast tracts of the city.
Dublin has come a long way 😮

@lostexpectation wrote:

I said it, i meant it, f off out of it.

Your tone needs work. ‘thanks but’ does not mean the same thing as ‘thanks’ or even the same thing as ‘thanks, but…’ You may as well have said ‘Thanks for nothing.’

If you wanted colour photos, why didn’t you ask for them?

Perhaps if you took more than 10 seconds to compose your posts…

Well here’s a view of it now, you could just photoshop it blue… 😀

http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=swr1cwggbrnh&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=29506805&where1=Dublin%20tara%20street&encType=1

@ctesiphon wrote:

Your tone needs work. ‘thanks but’ does not mean the same thing as ‘thanks’ or even the same thing as ‘thanks, but…’ You may as well have said ‘Thanks for nothing.’

If you wanted colour photos, why didn’t you ask for them?

Perhaps if you took more than 10 seconds to compose your posts…

so your still trying to tell me what i meant, you seem to have trouble catching the subtly of tone across the internet, once again- grammar nazis sticking their nose in can go elsewhere THANKS

back to architecture please

@lostexpectation wrote:

so your still trying to tell me what i meant, you seem to have trouble catching the subtly of tone across the internet, once again

No, he’s (?) telling you what it comes across as, that’s quite different. Ever tried taking a deep breath, and maybe considering that someone else could possibly be right? “Subtlety of tone” being a major issue on the internet, as you seem to have realised, means that the person “speaking” should be making more of an effort to be correctly understood. If you don’t, then don’t complain that people don’t know what you meant. And if you snap at people and behave rudely, don’t expect the conversation to get anywhere near architecture any time soon.

@lostexpectation wrote:

so your still trying to tell me what i meant, you seem to have trouble catching the subtly of tone across the internet, once again- grammar nazis sticking their nose in can go elsewhere THANKS

back to architecture please

I am not trying to tell you what you meant. I am asking you to tell us what you mean. This has nothing to do with grammar (or spelling, or syntax…) and everything to do with content.

If I am guilty of anything, it is of being too attuned to subtlety of tone. Such is my burden.

You’re welcome.

Now, back to architecture.

EDIT: poukai beat me to it. And in a more even tone.

@poukai wrote:

No, he’s (?) telling you what it comes across as, that’s quite different. Ever tried taking a deep breath, and maybe considering that someone else could possibly be right? “Subtlety of tone” being a major issue on the internet, as you seem to have realised, means that the person “speaking” should be making more of an effort to be correctly understood. If you don’t, then don’t complain that people don’t know what you meant. And if you snap at people and behave rudely, don’t expect the conversation to get anywhere near architecture any time soon.

but i didn’t behave rudely, ctesiphon thought i did and somehow thought it worth mentioning on Morlan’s behalf, you can fuck off too seeing as you having trouble understanding subtlety.I thought i might show him what rudeness is. its up to people on the internet to know its hard to portray tone and therefore not go looking for offence like ctesiphon did., ctesiphon snapped at me first, acting like the matron of archeire when non-one asked him too, especially when i specifically thanked morlan, ctesiphon can fuck off twice as much now.

NOW, back to architecture.

‘Matron’? I like that!

Does anyone know where the short fuses are?

. . . I know I saw them here somewhere . . .

congrats Gunter on your 1000th post!!!!!

as for ctesiphon, you’ve always struck me as a Hattie Jacques type

the grammar nazi convention is in town, no matter how many of you posts do you think you going to convince me i didnt say what I meant and meant what I said? alonso or gunter got anything to saw about ugly buildings no, then shut up
back to architecture.

@alonso wrote:

As for ctesiphon, you’ve always struck me as a Hattie Jacques type

You’re not too far off, at least physically.

Stick a pipe in her gob (Ooh Matron!) and we could be twins!

lostexpectation- alonso and gunter, grammar nazis? Pull the other one! (Here endeth my involvement in this particular flame war. I seem to be opening a whole nother can of worms elsewhere…)

@lostexpectation wrote:

. . . . got anything to say about ugly buildings no, then shut up
back to architecture.

‘The Timber Yard’ housing development on the Coombe Bypass.

We know O’D + T are above reproach and all that, got more awards than this has punch card windows, but, for the purposes of debate, is this a beautiful building, or an ugly building?

It got a chirpy enough review from Ali (the city architect) in a recent RIAI journal, but it strikes me as unnecessarily severe and slightly loaded with architectural intentions at the expense of streetscape or even space-making (allegedly there’s a ”public square” somewhere within!).

I think It’s a legacy of the Modern Movement that still today there’s almost an inverse relationship between pleasant design and respected architecture, a relationship that I suspect would give Adolf Loos cause for satisfaction. If we were to check out the record of architectural awards over the last while, is it not true that the more plain the architecture, the more decorated the architects?

This won’t please Devin . . . us talking about completed stuff again.

@gunter wrote:

‘The Timber Yard’ housing development on the Coombe Bypass.

We know O’D + T are above reproach and all that, got more awards than this has punch card windows, but, for the purposes of debate, is this a beautiful building, or an ugly building?

It got a chirpy enough review from Ali (the city architect) in a recent RIAI journal, but it strikes me as unnecessarily severe and slightly loaded with architectural intentions at the expense of streetscape or even space-making (allegedly there’s a ”public square” somewhere within!).

I think It’s a legacy of the Modern Movement that still today there’s almost an inverse relationship between pleasant design and respected architecture, a relationship that I suspect would give Adolf Loos cause for satisfaction. If we were to check out the record of architectural awards over the last while, is it not true that the more plain the architecture, the more decorated the architects?

This won’t please Devin . . . us talking about completed stuff again.

Haven’t been down that way in quite a while….since I started taking the Luas insted of the 56A:) But, I have to say that building is not bad at all. Alot better then what was there before, namely dereliction. I would take issue with what kind of quality of life the residents of the ground floor units will have though.

Interesting point about Loos, I do see the similarities…..even a little Louis Kahn esque. Didn’t Loos work more in concrete or at least render covered brick. Its the brick, I feel which takes the spare look away.

Do you have more pics of the area? Cork St is one of the few places where unimaginative speculator blocks actually improved the area.

C

Say what you will about the expression… (McCulloughMulvin’s school and FKL’s apartmetnts, both within a five minuit walk in either direction on the same road are from the same family) I was at the AAI site visit for these some months back and would have to say I would give my left arm (I’m right handed) and a big toe for one of those, particularly one with the balcony cut into the sloped roof, or one at that corner…

I must say on first impressions, I really like that; there’s a warmth created by the terra cotta that I just have never got from O’DTs Ranelagh School – which Ive always believed to have been far too over-rated (maybe because Ranelagh is largely in yellow brick, which as gunter will point out is such a second rate material :p).

Anyhow, don’t know how this development passed me by, but time for a site visit. One last thing, my initial feelings would also have to be tempered with C’s reservations about quality of life for ground floor residents; why no shops?

PS Morlan, great shots – don’t suppose you have them in colour? 😀

@lostexpectation wrote:

but i didn’t behave rudely, (…) you can fuck off too (…) ctesiphon can fuck off twice as much now.

😀 Love it 😀 I rest my case, no way I could put it any better than you did yourself…

As for ugly buildings, there’s one I passed the other day that I must go back and get a pic of, on Church street I think, a residential block painted a very vivid bordeaux colour with cream bits? Does anyone know the one I’m thinking of? Sorry, very vague but it really does deserve the ugliest building award… or at least the ugliest paint job!

Edit: Actually, think I’ve found it, but I think the paint colour has changed, or maybe it looks different from the ground…
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=swr3ydgg9ffk&style=b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&scene=29506624&encType=1

@hutton wrote:

PS Morlan, great shots – don’t suppose you have them in colour? 😀

😮

My hand-colouring isn’t up to scratch, but had I lived in the early age of b&w photography, no doubt I’d be well into it.

‘The Timber Yard’ housing development on the Coombe Bypass.
To me that’s ugly, up there with that horrible block in Dolphin’s Barn

I was so reluctant to comment on this ambitious development on a thread titled Dublin’s Ugliest Building (gunter’s double-edged mind working overtime as ever), that I actually forgot about it entirely. Perhaps no bad thing for the adjective-weary, but to leave matters hanging on tributes as glowing as: “Alot better then what was there before, namely dereliction”, is something that just cannot be allowed.

It has to be agreed that this is not a pretty building. This is not always a bad thing however, as striking forms and strategic massing can often exude a confidence and generate a sense of place which go far beyond that of the School of Sculptural Functionalism – Sod The Residents favoured by so many social housing experiments of the 20th century. I think this scheme balances a grandiosity of form and scale with human intimacy and domestic detailing quite well. The beautiful use of brick – probably the first large-scale use of the material in the city for purposeful architectual ends in the past twenty years – need not be overstated. It speaks volumes.

It is the road, and will always be the road, that detracts from this development though. Plonk it in a lavishly landscaped green setting and it would be transformed, as any design concept for this site would. It’s difficult to imagine that any softening of the architectural language – while acknowledging some degree of a tempering effect – would make such a difference, relative to the impact of the road on the scheme, as to warrant a radically different design. Likewise, the harshly engineered environs of the fronting pavement and public street area to the side do the development absolutely no favours.

The most successful aspect of the St. Luke’s Avenue facade for me is without question the easternmost (right-hand) block as viewed from the east. It is beautifully scaled, deftly modelled and elegantly detailed, with the neatly inset balconies harmonising with the wider facade being a particularly accomplished achievement. The block handles the corner very well, and is slenderly proportioned in a manner that proudly bookends the whole development. It is therefore a shame that the view of the same corner from the west is so blocky and leaden. It looks like it had a crew cut.

The low central brick section with its slatted timber inserts is beyond beautiful – the timber is fabulously detailed. Which is sadly more than can be said of the timber-clad storeys above. I find this section doesn’t work in the slightest – it is the 21st century equivalent of the fibreglass curtain wall apron panel on a concrete office block. It lacks substance, permanence and indeed relevance in the wider context of the solid, hewn-out-of-rock like formation of the rest of the development. The absence of relief in its blank facade, and the expansive use of timber suggesting structural form rather than an architectural accent as seen elsewhere, upsets the whole cart in terms of how the various blocks join together into a coherent whole. It looks like a grubby, infilled afterthought, and does an injustice to this otherwise accomplished piece of streetscape.

I like the rear elevations and enclosed winter gardens, and the open rooftop gardens set into sheltered cut-outs (commonplace in the Netherlands) look like fabulous spaces. The abundance of red paving at ground level I found a tad nauseating however.

The interiors of the apartments were surprisingly spartan. I thought social housing had moved up a gear, but clearly a budget fit-out is still the order of the day (I’ve seen similar standards in Louth social housing). The odd bedroom and kitchen I saw into were also surprisingly small – perhaps family units are more generously sized.

But definitely a thumbs up from me. Balancing public grandeur fronting a dual carriageway with residential intimacy is no mean feat. I think it’s been pulled off admirably.

If there is one wider niggling concern – and a point that was also on the mind of the person I viewed the scheme with – is that this is without question the Delany, McVeigh & Pike Coombe Housing equivalant of the 21st century. That was a similar 1970s development (just around the corner) of ambition and urban integrity, which sadly has not aged well. If there is hope for Timberyard, it is that the choice of material has been superb, unlike its glum predecessor, while strict controls regarding window, door and other element replacement and alteration should avoid the piecemeal deconstruction of the scheme’s design intention.

@GrahamH wrote:

Re: Timberyard:
. . . definitely a thumbs up from me. Balancing public grandeur fronting a dual carriageway with residential intimacy is no mean feat. I think it’s been pulled off admirably.

OK Graham, it doesn’t deserve to be dealt with on a thread of this title, but you put the Timberyard (by O’Donnell/Toomey) together with that school extension by McCullough/Mulvin, down the end of the road, and you have two of the heavy weights from Group 91, yes!

. . . . now, how do you compare this cold, defensive, architecture with all those aspiration in ‘Making a Modern Street’ ?

Surely the Coombe by-pass should have been exactly that; the making of a modern street?

I don’t disagree on that one. But making a street from a heavily trafficked dual carriageway, where the public realm has already been shaped by pedestrian barriers, island ‘refuges’ (as road engineers themselves have the audacity to title them) and galvanised steel lampposts and other furnishings, is no easy task. I agree that so much of Cork Street and St. Luke’s ‘Avenue’ has failed to create a modern street, but I wouldn’t dump this problem at the door of Timberyard, it being one of the more successful components. The sense of enclosure, digestable make-up of blocks and visual animation it generates along with the adjacent yellow brick development on the corner with Ardee Street is the most successful piece of contemporary streetscape along the entire the by-pass.

I don’t think it would be fair to blame the ills of this ‘street’ on the stoicism, or the lack of retail, or the stern demeanor, or whatever, of Timberyard. Its design is justified – sadly it is the rest of the street that fails so miserably to step up to the plate.

This is completely ridiculous to be discussing one of the best buildings built in dublin in the past ten years in this context.

The timberyard block does more for Cork street than any other development on it by a country mile. do we really need more vacant shops to join the rest of them, to add to the deathly vacant atmosphere created by the developer blocks? or do we need some people living directly on and animating the street like the rest of the liberties.

You go into the main courtyard space and tell me its not by a country mile the best semi-public space to relate to a dual-carraigeway youve ever been in. AND a new pedestrian route throught the area has been created, a rare and generous thing in Irish urbanism.

I think you should be fucking ashamed of yourselves attacking this project.

Shoulnt we be attacking mindless sh1t like the one below instead of a project that is taking a careful, thoughtful approach to the public realm on a very difficult site.

Liberty hall is the worst eye sore in this city!

@GrahamH wrote:

It is the road, and will always be the road, that detracts from this development though. Plonk it in a lavishly landscaped green setting and it would be transformed, as any design concept for this site would. It’s difficult to imagine that any softening of the architectural language – while acknowledging some degree of a tempering effect – would make such a difference, relative to the impact of the road on the scheme, as to warrant a radically different design. Likewise, the harshly engineered environs of the fronting pavement and public street area to the side do the development absolutely no favours.

Could some ivy and Virginian Creeper growing over the brickwork serve to soften this development and replicate the effect that putting it in a green setting that you set out in the above excerpt?

@VforVendetta wrote:

Liberty hall is the worst eye sore in this city!

I disagree. I think it contrasts with the Custom House beautifully, it’s well-proportioned and, in previous carnations, it was even more attractive. What it needs is a refurbishment with new windows and TLC on the lower floors.

@what? wrote:

Timberyard’
. . . . one of the best buildings built in dublin in the past ten years . . . .

The timberyard block does more for Cork street than any other development on it by a country mile.

I think you should be fucking ashamed of yourselves attacking this project.

I’m sorry what? but that’s just sycophantic nonsense!

For a start, I wasn’t attacking this project, I was questioning it’s aesthetics, it’s value as streetscape, and whether it’s design was driven by architectural zeal at the expense of creating somewhere that might be a pleasant to live in, and live near.

I don’t like the harshness of this design, the cheerlessness of the brick facades, the deep, eyeless socket, openings, the inhuman, aquarium tank, balconies, the low, garage door, proportions of the street level openings, the blocky massing, the institutional severity, but most of all I don’t like what I see as the abandonment of the principles that, by our buildings, we can make a street.

I also don’t buy that bullshit that this is a dual-carriageway, there is nothing they could do!

Lower Baggot Street is a dual-carriageway if you choose to see it as such.

Just as a point of information, the new Cork street isn’t a dual-carraigeway as it has no central median, but is instead a primary distributor road.

The fact that it is being discussed on here as such is indicative as to the destructive anti-pedestrian treatment delivered by DCC’s Roads and Traffic Dept.

DCC’s R&T dept have succeeded in making a new inner-city street feel like a bad old-style DC relief road – quite an accomplishment!

Michael Philips, where are you? 😡

It has a median now hutton! It’s getting the Dorset Street see, it’s not a corridor, it’s street! tree treatment.

@gunter wrote:

I don’t like the harshness of this design, the cheerlessness of the brick facades, the deep, eyeless socket, openings, the inhuman, aquarium tank, balconies, the low, garage door, proportions of the street level openings, the blocky massing, the institutional severity, but most of all I don’t like what I see as the abandonment of the principles that, by our buildings, we can make a street.

I disagree. I think this is a proud, upstanding civic building that makes a grand public declaration on a major, eh, ‘route’, while exuding a domestic softness at close quarters which makes it eminently livable. I think this would be a very nice place to live, and to live near.

Yes the entrances fronting the street are low, but I found these to be very comforting, bordering on cosy if that were externally possible, and an effective solution to the barrage of passing traffic. I used this route daily for two years – the buses especially are intolerable given the speeds they reach along this stretch, while in the mornings a bottleneck of cars sits outside your living room window. The intimate, shielded character of the entrances and small gardens takes account of this. Of course it shouldn’t have to, but if you were O’D&T handed this delightful context, what other solution is there aside from a buffer of landscaping?

I do understand the ‘inhuman’ description, but for me that derives soley from the window size, which I find of slight concern, both on-site and upon reflection. It appears mean.

A brand new planned Dutch street below. In a different league to Cork Street traffic-wise, but a small private buffer of one metre depth was a requirement between every frontage and the public pavement, just to generate a sense of ownership fronting the street.

And if Timberyard is anonymous, goodness knows what DeB&M blown up x50 can be described as!

Can i just ask by what stretch of the imagination that Cork Street building is one of the ugliest in Dublin? I mean, ffs, you could pick a million buildings, including half the quays and most of the docklands, that are uglier than that.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

Can i just ask by what stretch of the imagination that Cork Street building is one of the ugliest in Dublin? I mean, ffs, you could pick a million buildings, including half the quays and most of the docklands, that are uglier than that.

I think if you read back, you find that nobody was saying that this was Dublin’s ugliest building, I introduced it to get the discussion away from pilloring again all the usual suspects and move it onto a debate about aesthetic progression / regression in the architecture of the Dublin streetscape.

Yea! that’s what I was doing

. . . . and I may have wanted to have a go at a project that I knew was about to be laden with architectural honours🙂

@gunter wrote:

I think if you read back, you find that nobody was saying that this was Dublin’s ugliest building, I introduced it to get the discussion away from pilloring again all the usual suspects and move it onto a debate about aesthetic progression / regression in the architecture of the Dublin streetscape.

Yea! that’s what I was doing

. . . . and I may have wanted to have a go at a project that I knew was about to be laden with architectural honours🙂

Hmm ok. Getting a bit off the point then! Reading all the posts would be a tedious process, I have to content myself with the last couple.

What happened to the ESB Fitzwilliam St. ideas comp.? Is there a thread with images submitted by members that I don’t know about?

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

Reading all the posts would be a tedious process……

I’ve spent a tedious Sunday afternoon doing just that. For research purposes and a bit of divilment !
I decided to rake back over the 10 and a half years of this threads existence to find the definitive answer to the question of Dublin’s ugliest building based on the suggestions and nominations put forward by the contributors. I used a very scientific formula to conduct this exhaustive endeavour. :p

Namely :

– Only buildings that are actually named are included. There were numerous references to apartment blocks being located close to this or that, so to avoid confusion I decided to omit such vague contributions.

– To reflect the context of individual posts, only buildings which I deemed to have been suggested as ugly by the poster are included and not other buildings he/she may have mentioned by way of comparison.

– Some people have nominated more than one building in their posts, with preferences numbered 1-10 etc. Others just mention 1 or 2 buildings in no particular order. I have included all buildings in these lists regardless of pecking order. (I don’t have time for all the re-counts proportional representation brings).:rolleyes:

– Someone suggested the airport as Dublin’s Ugliest Building. I took this to mean the present 1960’s terminal building as there are a number of other buildings in the airport complex with their own nominations.

So here are the results – and shut that drum roll up please.

Of the 66 buildings suggested, a total of 37 were nominated only once.
Too many to mention here, and I won’t single out one or two of the interesting ones because to do so would only lead us down off topic street.

A total of 19 buildings received 2 nominations. (Again, too many to list here).

The following buildings that grace our capital city are suggested on three occasions…
The ILAC Centre.
Central Bank, Dame St.
Woodchester House, Christchurch

These ones are suggested 4 times in the thread….
Ulster Bank, Georges Quay.
Civic Offices, Woodquay.

Those mentioned 5 times are…..
O’ Connell Bridge House.
The former Statoil garage, Usher’s Quay
Busaras

One building is nominated 6 times……
Liberty Hall

And the winner (or loser) with 9 nominations is………
Yep, its Hawkins House.

So now we know !

Here is some additional useless information.
Of the 66 suggested buildings there are….

6 Hotels.
4 Shopping Centres.
3 Churches.
1 Embassy.
1 Theatre.
1 Bridge.
Bits of an airport.

Now for ya. 🙂

@Global Citizen wrote:

I’ve spent a tedious Sunday afternoon doing just that. For research purposes and a bit of divilment !
I decided to rake back over the 10 and a half years of this threads existence to find the definitive answer to the question of Dublin’s ugliest building based on the suggestions and nominations put forward by the contributors. I used a very scientific formula to conduct this exhaustive endeavour. :p

Namely :

– Only buildings that are actually named are included. There were numerous references to apartment blocks being located close to this or that, so to avoid confusion I decided to omit such vague contributions.

– To reflect the context of individual posts, only buildings which I deemed to have been suggested as ugly by the poster are included and not other buildings he/she may have mentioned by way of comparison.

– Some people have nominated more than one building in their posts, with preferences numbered 1-10 etc. Others just mention 1 or 2 buildings in no particular order. I have included all buildings in these lists regardless of pecking order. (I don’t have time for all the re-counts proportional representation brings).:rolleyes:

– Someone suggested the airport as Dublin’s Ugliest Building. I took this to mean the present 1960’s terminal building as there are a number of other buildings in the airport complex with their own nominations.

So here are the results – and shut that drum roll up please.

Of the 66 buildings suggested, a total of 37 were nominated only once.
Too many to mention here, and I won’t single out one or two of the interesting ones because to do so would only lead us down off topic street.

A total of 19 buildings received 2 nominations. (Again, too many to list here).

The following buildings that grace our capital city are suggested on three occasions…
The ILAC Centre.
Central Bank, Dame St.
Woodchester House, Christchurch

These ones are suggested 4 times in the thread….
Ulster Bank, Georges Quay.
Civic Offices, Woodquay.

Those mentioned 5 times are…..
O’ Connell Bridge House.
The former Statoil garage, Usher’s Quay
Busaras

One building is nominated 6 times……
Liberty Hall

And the winner (or loser) with 9 nominations is………
Yep, its Hawkins House.

So now we know !

Here is some additional useless information.
Of the 66 suggested buildings there are….

6 Hotels.
4 Shopping Centres.
3 Churches.
1 Embassy.
1 Theatre.
1 Bridge.
Bits of an airport.

Now for ya. 🙂

Brilliant! 🙂

Although I do wonder if you need a hobby! 🙂

No surprise that Hawkins House emerged as the winner however it is clear that Hawkins House can’t be taken in isolation it is the middle block of the gang of three comprising College House and Apollo House.

On reflection one is surprised that no proposal was made to redevelp all three during the boom years as it is clear that Grade A office space worth a lot more could have been delivered.

With Grade A space likely to become scarce in 2012 due to the fall off in activity and occupiers moving from Grade B to Grade A space on lease expiry; lets hope that a plan with vision emerges. I’d not like to be holding any of these post lease expiry which I understand some of which occur around 2014 or so unless one had a vision

@WhiteCube wrote:

…if you’re ever in Wexford town there’s an architectural gem that should be preserved for the nation…a big sore looking yoke in red brick (i’m not sure what its supposed to compliment – there isn’t anything of that scale or material within 50miles), on the quays in front of the Talbot Hotel..”luxury apartment building”/juvinile detention unit..its a real country cousin to the many “brown envelope” developments in Dubliin

This thing ?

There is no doubt in my mind that Hawkins House is the one to beat, but it also “benefits” from a very bleak location, in an underscale car park, given priority over pedestrian access, and with a dreary bus park of a street to one side of it. Viewed, almost always, through a vision of diesel fumes. Replacing the Theatre Royal (no beauty itself but well liked, if not then appreciated or heavily used) also acts against it.

Now my question is if it had been built on a stand alone site, say somewhere in a field in Stillorgan, would it escape condemnation? I tend to feel no.

Hawkins House wouldn’t escape condemnation if it was located in the middle of a Mumbai slum.

@PVC King wrote:

No surprise that Hawkins House emerged as the winner however it is clear that Hawkins House can’t be taken in isolation it is the middle block of the gang of three comprising College House and Apollo House.

On reflection one is surprised that no proposal was made to redevelp all three during the boom years as it is clear that Grade A office space worth a lot more could have been delivered.

With Grade A space likely to become scarce in 2012 due to the fall off in activity and occupiers moving from Grade B to Grade A space on lease expiry; lets hope that a plan with vision emerges. I’d not like to be holding any of these post lease expiry which I understand some of which occur around 2014 or so unless one had a vision

The big problem with this site is not that there was no demand but that all three buildings are in State ownership – DoHC, DSFA and An Post. The saga of relocating the DoHC shows how slow the State has been in realising what could have been a profitable asset.

And how in any fuctioning state, these would be the easiest of all properties to redevelop, in the common interest, in the speediest of timeframes.

Damn straight, the missed opportunities during the Tiger years take some beating. Any developer would have killed for those sites and happily paid serious loot to the Exchequer.

Nuff Said

@pdosullivan wrote:

Damn straight, the missed opportunities during the Tiger years take some beating. Any developer would have killed for those sites and happily paid serious loot to the Exchequer.

Completely or they could have gone down the JV route and captured even more of the upside.

A scheme on this site with government department(s) as the tenant on a 15 year term certain would secure funding and remove Dublin’s only triple office horror story.

@StephenC wrote:

The big problem with this site is not that there was no demand but that all three buildings are in State ownership – DoHC, DSFA and An Post. The saga of relocating the DoHC shows how slow the State has been in realising what could have been a profitable asset.

How did the state end up in possession of these awful buildings?

And why is the state also the owner of the ugly buildings at the Dawson Steet end of Moleworth Street?

Is there some kind of need to get their hands on terrible buildings created by THE worst developers?

In the late 1990s whilst reality still existed the state decided to purchase buildings where Government departments were tenants on long leases; it was a good strategy of reducing future liabilities. Examples of good purchases include Lansdowne House occupied by the revenue commisioners. Had the leases been extended and the buildings sold in 2006 the government would have made an absolute killing.

Would there be a case for banning all new commercial property development in Dublin until (a) the backlog of unoccupied buildings is cleared; (b) all work in progress is completed and let; and (c) the aforementioned 3 State owned buildings are demolished and, ahem, “restarted”?