Grafton Street, Dublin
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There is no room for a botched job here. What happened to the notion of testing various paving schemes on minor adjoining streets?
a “way-finding path” of dark grey stone off the central roadway on one side to provide an obstruction-free route along the street.
The existing layout does a good job of regularising what is a fairly haphazzard street line.
This sounds as if the primary visual guide delineated by darker paving will be for vehicular traffic, and worse, set to one side. This is a street for pedestrians and the pedestrian should be the sole focus of any new paving scheme.
@GrahamH wrote:
Grafton Street is now such a kip that I refuse to walk it anymore.
Can’t believe what they have done to the Boots frontage, and that permission was actually granted.
I look forward to seeing the scheme…including details such as lighting and street furniture. In essence was is proposed from the description is a similar scheme to Henry Street which uses mid grey granite offset with pink stone and a cobble sett effect to frame entrances. I generally like the Henry Street scheme although it had its problems. The original bollards being the main issue….nasty little things that were soon being removed and discarded. There are some still in place I think but they look awful. The stainless steel (we do our own thing) bollards outside Debenhams (then Roches Stores) arent much better and completely redundant on a pedestrianised street. Still this is Dublin and here the bollards rule.
Back to the Grafton Street design…the scheme has been completed for a while now because it was shown to DCBA a few months back. The plan then was to complete temp works to Clarendon Street (with an awful painted on scheme) to allow greater numbers to walk that street while Grafton was dug up. I understood from a presentation about 2 months back that the Clarendon works were imminent. Don’t hold your breath on this one though…remember that Fade Street is part of this DCC ‘vision’ for the area.
Coverage of the story in Irish Times:
Grafton St repaving in pink and grey to cost €2.5m
OLIVIA KELLYDUBLIN’S PRINCIPAL shopping street, Grafton Street, is to be repaved in grey and pink granite by Dublin City Council at a cost of approximately €2.5 million.
The work, which will see the surface of the entire street dug up and the existing red-brick paving removed, is expected to take about a year to complete. It is due to get under way next January.
The council says the Eurobrick paving, which was laid on the pedestrianised street in the mid- 1980s, has deteriorated badly to the point where it requires repair on an almost daily basis.
“The replacement of its existing paving material is an imperative for the street and the city,” councillors were told last night.
The work will involve the removal of the existing pavement for the length of the street from the junction of Nassau Street and Suffolk Street, just in front of the Molly Malone Statue, to St Stephen’s Green North. The paving will be stripped back to the building line at each side of the street. All “street furniture” such as bins, bollards and poles will be removed and replaced.
The new paving should be “calm and understated in nature” the council says. The background colour will be a mid-grey with a “way-finding path” of dark grey stone off the central roadway on one side to provide an obstruction-free route along the street.
Street junctions will be marked along the street with a light pink granite square set into a darker pink apron. Entrances to small side streets are marked with pink granite threshold paving and the shopfronts will be edged with a margin of pink granite setts.
Councillors last night approved the initiation of the plans but raised concerns that the works would have a serious impact on the use of the street.
The work will be undertaken on a phased basis to minimise disruption for businesses, the council says. The new paving and street furniture will also provide protection to existing private under-street cellars from the weight of delivery vehicles and will allow for street maintenance by mechanised street-cleaning vehicles.
The work is to be the first in a series of improvements for the area which the council has dubbed the Grafton Street quarter.
The council plans to spend a further €9.5 million by the end of 2014 on improvements to other streets surrounding Grafton Street. Plans for the repaving come more than five years after the council designated Grafton Street as an architectural conservation area.
The designation serves to protect the appearance of the street by specifying shopfront design and the material used in the maintenance of old buildings and in new developments.
To be utterly depressed, read the commentary on journal.ie
http://www.thejournal.ie/grafton-street-in-dublin-to-be-repaved-in-new-colours-374970-Mar2012/
[attachment=1:iygeliz6]422807_306193652777873_100001617226452_806248_1672915804_n.jpg[/attachment:iygeliz6]
Graham – Grafton St. c.1922[attachment=0:iygeliz6]boots.jpg[/attachment:iygeliz6]
And the shopfront as then@StephenC wrote:
I look forward to seeing the scheme…including details such as lighting and street furniture. In essence was is proposed from the description is a similar scheme to Henry Street which uses mid grey granite offset with pink stone and a cobble sett effect to frame entrances. I generally like the Henry Street scheme although it had its problems.
Not a fan of the Henry Street scheme. This is not fucking China!
What’s wrong with a bit of Kilkenny Limestone?
It’s interesting that the press release about the Grafton Street Area redevelopment harps on about improved and ‘matching’ street furniture like bins and lamposts etc. Isn’t that what was originally promised and done for Henry Street and O’Connell Street before it was all chipped away at during the years after those streets’ redevelopments?
But just why did DCC replace the modern-looking stylish steel bins on Henry Street and O’Connell Street after their redevelopment? It really bugs me as I think those bins were way nicer that the ones currently on the street. Anyone know?
One of life’s eternal mysteries, Daragh…
Interesting photograph there, Paul. It appears to show the same glazed shopfront with curved glass and granite plinth, but different pilasters and fascia.
And sure enough, when you do a bit of crawling, a nice bit of matching pink granite exposes itself beneath the modern timber pilasters.
Viewed head-on, you can see how the shopfront clearly projects out into the street in a skewed fashion.
The building in late 2011 before the shopfront was mauled.
We mustn’t forget that the Boots building is also one of the oldest on Grafton Street, and was probably gable-fronted originally. Here it is in Shaw’s Pictorial Directory of 1850, showing a squat little attic storey of apparent Regency vintage that almost certainly replaced a gable storey. A projecting closet return remains to the rear, while the chopped-out early 18th century chimneystack and replacement supporting decorative column can still be observed inside the shop, now surrounded by delightful frothy plasterwork.
A wonderful tell tale indicator of the building’s former gable-fronted status is this beautifully ornate hopper that remains stranded, swamped by the stucco of the facade, a considerable distance down from the new parapet valley.
One would like to think of it as original to the construction of the house and hence one of the oldest surviving in the city, but it does appear to be 19th century cast-iron, complete with lettering of some kind. A niave little face also adorns the collar.
The figure at first floor level, presumably Hygieia wth serpent, can just about be made out in Paul’s earlier picture.
As much as I dislike it, surely Boots are simply following the trend. I mean, why should they retain a respectable shopfront when everyone else on the street isn’t?
Any plans on-line detailing proposed new paving scheme / layout?
Gosh, this thread would bring you back down after enjoying all the lovely sunny weather. While the above commenters are certainly right that some premises have deteriorated (particularly Boots, it’s shocking that they’ve been let ruin that beautiful old-fashioned shop front with that plasticised mess) there are still places on Grafton Street which recognise that they are on the premier shopping street of Ireland’s premier city. Swarovski, Bewley’s, Brown Thomas, Weir and Sons, Tommy Hilfiger, M&S, McDonalds and the Disney Shop would be examples of better stewards than the ones mentioned above. So while there are problems with Grafton St. such as cracked paving, a proliferation of gaudy signage and a lack of general will to maintain standards, those standards are still there and Grafton Street, especially in frosty December with the lights aglow, still has the power to sparkle.
I don’t think anyone would disagree with you Cathal. Its because so many can see the potential of the street and are concerned at how the falling standards of some affect the overall quality for everyone that we moan. 🙂
I wandered about Dublin yesterday and it was fab, in the sunshine you could be in the prettiest Continental city. The red brick and huge windows about the squares looked gorgeous in the afternoon light. The parks looked beautiful with spring planting and people enjoying themselves. The buzz about South William Street and Clarendon Street with cafes and streetlife was a real tonic.
The proposals for Grafton Street have been submitted for planning permission today. I cant find anything on the DCC website…probably be a few days. The notice details repaving and replacement of street furniture (which I imagine means goodbye to Dublin cast irons and hello catalogue).
I emailed DCC asking for photomontages of the Grafton Street proposals. DENIED.
I guess we’ll have to wait for the vague, black and white photocopies that they stick up on their site.
I’m a bit concerned about this:
The background colour will be a mid-grey with a “way-finding path” of dark grey stone off the central roadway on one side to provide an obstruction-free route along the street.
Does that mean that there will be a marked roadway through the street? If so, wouldn’t that transform the entire experience of the street from being exclusively pedestrian to a shared roadway? Pedestrians will be subconsciously aware that the street is for also for traffic. Not good.
Are we going to end up with something like Fail Street in Stephen’s pic?
I have zero faith in DCC.
@Morlan wrote:
Does that mean that there will be a marked roadway through the street? If so, wouldn’t that transform the entire experience of the street from being exclusively pedestrian to a shared roadway? Pedestrians will be subconsciously aware that the street is for also for traffic. Not good.
I have major issues with this.
This sounds as if the primary visual guide delineated by darker paving will be for vehicular traffic, and worse, set to one side. This is a street for pedestrians and the pedestrian should be the sole focus of any new paving scheme.
Firstly might be best to wait until the plans can be viewed. The Part 8 plans were lodged yesterday and are on view until June 6th. I assume all will be on the DCC website next week. Another outlet for the plans might be here http://www.dublincityarchitects.ie/
I think you are both reading too much into the architects design speak on this. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that a shared roadway is envisaged or that the pedestrian nature of the street is to change. In face, if anything the trend seems to be for more pedestrianised streets in the area.
I think the architect is taking about differentiated pavements to guide pedestrian flows along the street. I think an example of what will happen on Grafton Street can already be found on Henry Street. Indeed the media story a few weeks back suggested that the ‘look’ of the street would be changed to match O’Connell and Henry Streets.
As it stands right now, there is a vehicular traffic route down Grafton Street, just delineated by the lamp standards and rubbish bins rather than paving.
I think you are both reading too much into the architects design speak on this. I haven’t heard anything to suggest that a shared roadway is envisaged or that the pedestrian nature of the street is to change. In face, if anything the trend seems to be for more pedestrianised streets in the area.
Perhaps Stephen – will have to wait & see.
The background colour will be a mid-grey with a “way-finding path” of dark grey stone off the central roadway on one side to provide an obstruction-free route along the street.
Difficult to reconcile this ‘way finding path’ business, however.
For me the Henry Street scheme is forgettable, and the general homogenisation of our entire public realm with Chinese granite, regrettable.
Gone are the nuances that define and characterise various pockets of the city.
Dyed ‘red’ concrete brick should never really have worked on Grafton Street, but it did. It defined and lifted the entire south city quarter. Sure, it is now time for it to go, but Grafton Street is in need of more than just another granite job. Using Irish stone would be a start.
I fear you may be disappointed by what’s planned Peter
hmmm…probably.
No plans up on the site yet though…
Last date for observations is 20th June
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