Dublin’s Ugliest Building

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 😡

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

@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 😮

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.

@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.

😮

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.

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

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

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.