gild the spike

Great idea……but expensive!

Something needs to be done, alright. At night it looks fine, and even from a distance during the day with bright sunshine. But up close, the joins look simply awful. And I’m speaking as a _fan_ of the Spike.

Also, does anyone know what the story is with the Urinal Beside the Gaiety fountain? It seems to be been turned off for a while, and no longer micturating down the street….

P.

The bottom section always looks to me as if it has been covered with a protective material which has been torn off, leaving patches of the material remaining. I am at a loss to understand what the artistic intention (of this bottom section) was.
The whole creation looks great from a distance (say from the bridge or Mary and Henry Streets) but the closer one gets the more disappointing it becomes.
Like the London Dome, my feeling always has been that the best way to celebrate the Millenium would have been to have created homes for the homeless, giving no more reason for beggers to be seen annoying the general public on the streets. Or am I being too simplistic?

Re Paul’s query – may i broaden the issue and ask why all the fountains in the city are turned off? The Tom Davis, the Garden of Rembrance, the Peace Garden etc

I once asked the City Council and was told that ‘Dublin didn’t have a tradition of fountains’ …. whatever that means. Also DCC say they do not own/are not responsible for the David fountain – its the OPW. OPW says its Duchas. Duchas say its not them it DCC. Here we go round the mulberry bush…

Fountains- think Anna Livia and lots of bubbles and foam, need I say any more!

The Spike up close, looks awful, the joins are way too visible.

The lack of fountains in this city only serves to underline the pathetic immaturity of so many of it’s inhabitants, every other European city, even London, has major fountains/water features – Dublin – a couple of bizzare squirty yokes in Stephens Green.

I always thought that a low level water feature exactly like the one in the grounds of Government Buildings could have surrounded the base of the Spire, with the jets of water squirting inwards towards its base, from which the scupture could rise out from.
At night, lighting from beneath the water would create a dappelled effect on the base.
And a low wall around it would serve as a pleasant seating area as a further focal point for the street, and at the Henry-Earl St axis, for weary shoppers & tourists.

Within a day it would be full of cans, crisp packets – and of course urine.

If it was properly policed however, the situation could have been so different from the dreary and boring dirt trap of a bronze base we have now.

And over a month on from when it’s cleaning contract was handed over to a private company, has it been cleaned?

……..tumbleweed………………………………..

poor old spike. it does look terrible. in 100 years it will look even more Ugly. something has to be done alright. the gold/leaf idea would be great. can’t see that happening though. this is ireland afterall.

As to litter – why not a team of litter wardens with the power to hand out on the spot €100 fines. This has worked in some cities in the UK – notably Leicester.

And to the problem of urine – although I condemn the way that some people relieve themselves, may be some public toilets might not go amiss.

public toilets yes but ones that are safe to use. i find public toilets dangerous. full of junkies and muggers. i stress not all toilets are bad in this way but they are all filthy. yuck. i think the single public loos are safer.

Poor old Spike… it seems to have been a wasted opportunity. I reckon the DCC will cop on to this eventally though and be forced to spend yet more money bringing the Spire up to the standard originally expected… probably once the paving is completed. A waste of money!

Why do you think the Spire has turned out to be so dissappointing…. bad project management, too many fingers in the pie?

……like everything else, too many goofballs running (or ruining morelike) the show!

Personally, I believe that as a nation our standards are too low, from design stage through to completion. There was never any emphasis on the quality of engineering that went into the spike.

I believe we are very immature when it comes to design, most of our population are extremely undereducated on the benefits of good design and our design and manufacturing industries are stifled by the lack of emphasis we put on good design at every level.

I realise that this all goes back to the old argument about our lack of an industrial revolution …… But it is time to put some real effort into educating Irish people in an active manner about design.

By the way, I have noticed that the only noise being made about the poor quality of the spike is coming from this site, I don’t hear anyone else complaining.

…. Ah sure it’ll do, won’t it!

Hmm Im not so sure… I think it is possible to improve on the Spike as is. I like the pool of water at the base idea…. or at least the original polished black marble base. And all it needs is a clean to get rid of the discolouration. I never expected it to look like the sheer join-free surface depicted on the drawings (I have yet to see structure look as it is suggested on the drawings!) but there must be a way of dealing with surface to at least improve its appearance.

Try popping into Grogan’s one evening – no one there likes it either! To come to think of it the only people I have heard praising it are tourists.

Great write-up about “The Spire of Dublin” in last Saturday’s Telegraph (arts supplement ) basically saying Dublin’s Spire should win this years Sterling prize. Really cheered me up flying home from Malaga. I noticed in Spain that every roundabout along the Costa features a work of art, the only one I am aware of in Dublin is the one in Rialto which features two Dolphins and was financed by DCC but the idea came from local community groups when they were asked what to spend a proposed donation to the area on.

Originally posted by Max
Try popping into Grogan’s one evening – no one there likes it either! To come to think of it the only people I have heard praising it are tourists.

Ahh shure Grogans is full of failed bitter artists 😀

Just a reminder that the Parisians hated the Eiffel tower when it was first erected.

Maybe it’ll weather well and the colour difference won’t be as noticeable. Give it a hundred years 😉

How about if we stick an effigy of Nelson on the top, install a lift and charge punters sixpence a go to ride to the top?

Its true, the spike is very badly finished and to choose a material which is so easily affected by the dirt in the city air is strange. Either you need a budget for someone to come with a huge bottle of silvo every saturday morning or else the designer should have anticipated the aging process and chosen a material which would intentionally age and reflect its environment.
Why not make the area a stage to host temporary sculptures which would be replaced every four years to conincide with the general elections, and built within this budget?

I think that all of us on this site could be percieved as being overly critical of the Spire because we have been following it stage by stage during planning, construction, finishing and how it sits in it’s surroundings etc, whereas the public have only been experiencing the Spire only in terms of it’s finished outcome, they are unaware of the delays, the compromises, the lack of lighting etc etc, – and even then most people don’t even look at it closely so they’re not even critical of the finish!

But there is no question that the overall finish if far from satisfactory in 3 areas:
.The joins
.The dirt
.The lighting

The lighting at the tip has been the least talked about.
The fact that the tip is made up of 6 different sections – divided by 5 ‘rungs’ is a terrible asthetic cop-out as a result of engineering constraints, it is so contrived and obviously consticted by it’s design, the rungs destroying the free flow of the light to the very tip of the sculpture.

And it is clearly evident that it is’nt the overall air quality in Dublin thats causing it to be so dirty, but rather the dust and dirt thats rising from O’ Connell St and surrounding areas.

If you stand down Talbot or Henry St, the top third/half or so is shining clean in contrast with the lower half (and its nothing to do with shadows etc)

It is madness that it has’nt been cleaned since its erection, just madness.

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
And over a month on from when it’s cleaning contract was handed over to a private company, has it been cleaned?

of course not. it’s self-cleaning. 😉

Originally posted by Papworth
I noticed in Spain that every roundabout along the Costa features a work of art, the only one I am aware of in Dublin is the one in Rialto which features two Dolphins and was financed by DCC

There’s also the white pointy-thing in the small roundabout at the entrance to Dublin Airport.

Saw the completed Spike for the first time on Thursday Paul, night and day.

Bloody brilliant. Outstanding for Dublin and I wish we had it in Glasgow.

No more poor mouth comment please

the Son of Spike from Leith in Edinburgh, I think they’re hoping it will grow.

Alan, should have gave me a shout, I’d have bought you a pint. Just the one.

Is this a joke?

Not the pint bit , the spike.

Be in Dublin again soon Paul and I’ll take that pint off you, all right…….. but not in Groggan’s

No joke… down near the Central Bar… was on a bit of a pub crawl, spotted it and luckily had camera squeezed into coat pocket…. its art man!

You can not believe anything Paul Clerkin says. Next thing you know, the minispike will be on the front page of the Irish Independent.

bet the one in Scotland has no joins showing and gets a clean now and again

I’m gonna ask John Graby at the RIAI to conduct a poll, leaving out Dublin Taxi Drivers of course and Groggan’s and maybe An Taisce, and if the same mealy mouthed negative attitude pestsist, conduct a campaign to get it shifted over to Glasgow where it will be appreciated for what it is a POWERFUL and innovative piece of urban design.

You guy’s, forgive me, need to take your head out from up your a**s and see a bit more of the world

I thought it was the dirt of it that was the problem…. and the base….. and the lighting (or lack of)… and the beacon on top and halfway down…. and the ‘DNA-like’ pattern around the lower section….

Point taken Alan we shall learn to love it…!

Well, I hope so Stephen, for it is something to see, lamb kebab stain, dirt, dna like pattern and all.

Yes I think so too. To be fair though the majority of us on the site are very supportive of the Spire… its just the niggly things that we comment on and I don’t think there’s anything bad about that.

The reason they are not cleaning it, is because of the vast quantities of dust and dirt being dislodged in the redevelopment of the street. Sometimes the dust there is too thick to breathe these days.

When the street is finished, they plan to give the spire a good scrub, and then keep it clean…

Hope my DNA doesn’t look like that

This weeks t-shirt slogan ” I like (the) Spike”

Originally posted by kefu
You can not believe anything Paul Clerkin says. Next thing you know, the minispike will be on the front page of the Irish Independent.

Yeah I know….but you know I’ve caught the Star out several times too? And the Mirror? and the Herald? and the Sun?

If we wait for the street’s completion, it won’t be cleaned til 2048!

And you know you could do it again in the morning if you wanted.

whatever about the spike, it definitely should not be gold. tack.

………like a loo roll holder from a giant Turkish ship owner’s bathroom

Silver is a trendy colour at the mo…however gold is everlasting. Would tie in with our ancient Irish history of Or …..aka gold!

Here’s Giles Woseley’s glowing encomium, previously mentioned by Papworth, from the Daily Telegraph of August 16:

Viewfinder: Spire of Dublin

The simplicity of Ian Ritchie’s towering steel needle belies the complexity of the engineering, says Giles Worsley

Soaring 120 metres high, cutting through the night sky as thin as a blade of light, mysterious on a rainy day, brilliant in sharp sunlight, Ian Ritchie’s recently completed Spire of Dublin is as convincing as any monument to be found in a Renaissance city. Constructed in celebration of Ireland’s confident future in the third millennium, it is a feat of astonishing technical competence and a sharp rejoinder to the clunking, heavy-handed memorials with which the British continue to clutter their streets and parks.

This is a truly 21st-century monument. It doesn’t proclaim the authority of a king or a conqueror, nor does it memorialise some terrible act of savagery. Instead, it is an affirmation of the essential optimism of the human spirit. Built of stainless steel with a bronze base, the spire’s apparent simplicity belies the complexity of the engineering. This is what Norman Foster tried to do with his “blade of light” across the River Thames, but where that grunts and strains to appear effortless, Ritchie’s spire does not even break sweat.

The site is charged with historic resonance: a statue of Nelson stood there until it was blown up by the IRA, opposite the General Post Office, where the 1916 Irish uprising took place. It lies on O’Connell Street, once the prosperous heart of Dublin, now a tired provincial high street. The spire captures the spirit of the new Ireland, healing the wounds of earlier nationalisms while promising the revival of what should be a great European boulevard.

Modern and yet timeless, the spire has achieved the hardest of architectural feats. Medieval masons seeking to push at the boundaries of the structurally feasible would recognise what Ian Ritchie and the engineers Ove Arup & Partners have sought to achieve. So, too, would Renaissance architects with their keen awareness of the importance of a sense of civic pride in a successful city. And yet there is nothing nostalgic about it. Looking for the winner of the 2004 Sterling Prize? Head for Dublin.

There is no question as to the amazing precision of it’s engineering, the rolling of the steel into tapered cylinders was executed to something like a 4 millimetre average in circumference.
But the joins are still disapointingly evident – if only there was a stainless steel Polyfilla…