ESB Headquarters Fitzwilliam Street
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Alternative Ideas Competition for the ESB HQ
Due to the overly restrictive nature of the ESB-run competition to design a new headquarters for their Fitzwilliam Street site, Archiseek.com is inviting all architects (and not just those with huge financial resources) to demonstrate their ideas for the site.
Ideas can be presented as a quick sketch, or a finished rendering, and all submissions will be published online at Archiseek.com. Unfortunately there is no prize fund, and we can categorically state that there is no chance of it being built. Just back in the adulation of your peers.
This is a chance for all firms to demonstrate the creativity that the ESB has chosen to ignore.
Send your entries to
pclerkin@archiseek.comNo rules! . . . . I like that 🙂
Can re re-use the official site map?
Note: the few Georgian houses that the ESB didn’t manage to knock down the first time round are shaded in brown, just in case anyone wants to do a Sam Stephenson on them!
So what are we looking at here ….. really? Reinstatement of the facade and roof profile, and aatrium behind linking to new building?
It’s the one everyone talks about when justification for replica is mentioned ..
@Devin wrote:
Reinstatement of the facade and roof profile, and aatrium behind linking to new building?
It’s the one everyone talks about when justification for replica is mentioned
Can’t see scope for anything less to fitzwilliam street …
Anyone listen to Sean O’Laoire on Radio One this morning? Spoke well on why the competition is unfair.
Thank god he didn’t go off on some hideous tangent and start talking about rabbit populations in Westmeath or the guatamalan sugar crisis of ’78 as he is prone to doing.
Blind replication of the facades would be a massive step back for architecture in Ireland. The replicated Georgian facades on lower pembroke road are offensive.
There is no doubt Fitzwilliam St. facade requires more a more subtle rhythmic/ textural treatment than the purely oblique formal interpretation that’s there now, but replication however tempting is not the long term solution.
@what? wrote:
Blind replication of the facades would be a massive step back for architecture in Ireland. The replicated Georgian facades on lower pembroke road are offensive.
Offensive to the 0.1% of the population who are architects, and pleasing to the 99.9% who aren’t.
@what? wrote:
Blind replication of the facades would be a massive step back for architecture in Ireland. The replicated Georgian facades on lower pembroke road are offensive.
There is no doubt Fitzwilliam St. facade requires more a more subtle rhythmic/ textural treatment than the purely oblique formal interpretation that’s there now, but replication however tempting is not the long term solution.
I think we will get a varied material pallet based on the old lots for fitzy.
Georgian facade in wood, georgian facade in brick vertical bond ectThe old blocko could come into play behind but with ellipse or hexagon roofs sections…
The building might even look a mutant plant… edouard-francois would be nice
@what wrote:
but replication however tempting is not the long term solution.
yes it is, otherwise we’ll be having the same discussion / competition in 50 years when whatever ‘form’ is inserted meets the scorn of the next generation wearing their 2060 tinted goggles.
Replication is fundamentally wrong.
Instead of adding to history, it undermines it.
The 99.9% of people who believe the replicas are real, believe a lie.
Truth is beauty, however ugly it may be.
@what? wrote:
Replication is fundamentally wrong.
Instead of adding to history, it undermines it.
The 99.9% of people who believe the replicas are real, believe a lie.
Truth is beauty, however ugly it may be.
Well if you believe that the original streetscape had an aesthetic unity which will never be recreated by modern infill, then our dedication to beauty ought to lead us to recreating it. Even if the buildings aren’t original, they serve an aesthetic purpose as part of an integrated whole. I know contemporary architecture may, to the detriment of the city, focus on heterogeneous streetscapes as a reflection of modern times. But to apply this to every situation, regardless of context, is ideological extremism and in this situation unquestionably wrong.
@Peter Fitz wrote:
yes it is, otherwise we’ll be having the same discussion / competition in 50 years when whatever ‘form’ is inserted meets the scorn of the next generation wearing their 2060 tinted goggles.
Fully endorsed. What has stood the test of time better post-WW II bombardment; the continental or British approach to rebuilding? Simplistic litmus test but one which stands up imo.
I am not advocating a jarring ‘signature’ building here.
I am saying that a visually sensitive response is needed.
I am also saying that historical recreations anywhere, equate to a distortion of history more deeply disturbing than any facile disunity created by a modern building in a historical setting.
It depends what is meant by ‘historical recreation’. Personally I would be in favour of rebuilding all 16 houses, but critically as just that, houses. Frankly I think this has much integrity as any piece of clever contemporary infill, and in the longer term would prove to be the more gratifying option. These residences could take the form of a mixture of full-on townhouses and purpose-designed apartments in the Continental tradition.
I do however also feel that the redevelopment of the entire site is something which must exhibit a design unity and coherence. The reconstruction of houses to the front with a behemoth of a contemporary insert to the rear, ‘to make the figures stack up’ Spencer Dock-style, would undermine the integrity of the whole scheme. There is a perception that the south Georgian core is self-sustaining and has achieved its optimum quality and level of occupancy, whereas the reality is that an opportunity is presented by this redevelopment to inject much life and vigour into what is a lifeless, if beautiful, quarter of the city – the blonde trinklet on the arm of Dublin (even if Dublin is another female, though I often suspect sexless myself – it’s hard to know where to look to confirm these things), which exhibits much style but little in the way of substance. This affords an unparalled chance to inject a large and dense residential population into the very heart of Dublin.
I feel the entire development should use brick as a baseline material, with the contemporary parts making reference to Georgian design through scale and proportionality and a wider interpretation of the era’s guiding principles. If anyone thinks I’m calling for 80s pastiche, we forget this discussion now. It’s time for architects to get real and imaginative about contextual architecture – surely matters have progressed in architectural thinking to a degree that intelligent, academic design can be just plain old pleasant to look at and live in, whilst also gratifying those who look for the more subtle layers in the built environment.
@what? wrote:
I am not advocating a jarring ‘signature’ building here.
I am saying that a visually sensitive response is needed.
I am also saying that historical recreations anywhere, equate to a distortion of history more deeply disturbing than any facile disunity created by a modern building in a historical setting.
Architecture has and will continue to distort history regardless of style because it is a reflection of people… what ever happened to chain mail it got lost in transport and declared damaged goods return to sender? Expect triangle shaped roofs?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomcosgrave/141626225/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanneste/3252013768/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/360berlin/3030249473/sizes/o/@what? wrote:
Replication is fundamentally wrong.
Instead of adding to history, it undermines it.
I would normally agree. In this case however, it is Fitzwilliam street that has been fundamentally undermined, making reinstatement, fundamentally right.
@GrahamH wrote:
It depends what is meant by ‘historical recreation’. Personally I would be in favour of rebuilding all 16 houses, but critically as just that, houses. Frankly I think this has much integrity as any piece of clever contemporary infill, and in the longer term would prove to be the more gratifying option. These residences could take the form of a mixture of full-on townhouses and purpose-designed apartments in the Continental tradition.
This would also be my preferred option & really represents the optimum that could be achieved under the circumstances, unfortunately unlikely though & reaching for my pragmatic hat, exact facade & roofline reinstatement is probably the best that can be hoped for.
@GrahamH wrote:
(even if Dublin is another female, though I often suspect sexless myself – it’s hard to know where to look to confirm these things),
Poolbeg? …
sorry 😮
@lostexpectation wrote:
did the esb not consider leaving the site?
omp? but why would you leave a site like this it makes no long term sense
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