Irish say no to PVC windows
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Well as some concession he did describe it as ‘a ghastly material’ 🙂
You’d wonder in big developments like Stephen St if these windows are made industrially by big structural engineering companies, as there’s probably no one left that makes them on a small-scale/domestic basis.
Even if you search on the internet there’s seemingly nothing in Ireland at all, and pretty much the same in the UK too.One of the last remaining steels in Crumlin village – had to snap it as there’s renovations going on that may result in its disappearance 🙁
There’s a great 1940s corner building on Sundrive Road built of that glowing orangey red brick with rustic concrete tiles on the roof. All fhe render detail and original steel windows which are more modernist that most in design are painted in black and it looks fantastic – almost hints of Tudor design in there such is the strange effect of the thin black glazing bars and imposing chimneys on the roof Must get a pic..
I remember hearing a few years ago that the Gas Company building on D’Olier Street were considering some refurbishment work and they got a quote for reinstatement the original steel windows at something like €15, 000 – per window. But those windows had been a sophisticated design with curved elements.
This is very rare (below) – a group of three houses in a row with steels surviving. Shandid Road, Harold’s Cross (taken this summer).
Wow – drool or what! 😀
That green is fantastic, a classic colour of the period. So refreshing to see a deviation from conventional white.
That casement detail is most unusual. Lovely gates too.Steel window manufacturing clearly was a huge industry from the early 30s on to cater for the huge demand of the growing suburbs. Found this great ad on the internet – the text is a bit difficult to make out, so an attempt at reproduction is made at the bottom:
A little twist and push – it’s open! Casement windows won’t stick in our weather. They always open easily. Casement windows are less work.
Steel windows are available in many designs. They are good-looking, durable, and inexpensive too. And because the steel bars and centre-pieces are slimmer than wood windows the light comes through; they are incredibly strong. Steel windows are used in schools, factories and all types of buildings…..😀
Great stuff. The text sounds uneasily similar to a PVC sales pitch though!! 🙁 😀
Since all the suburban house examples I’ve posted so far have been southside, here’s a northside one – Oakley Park in Clontarf, taken summer ’05 (Doors, front boundary walls and gates are original as well as windows 🙂 ):
Four momo houses opposite the Submarine Bar in Crumlin – not one of them is in original condition with steel windows & no add-ons.
That one with the ‘Georgian’ glazing and balustraded parapet is almost funny. Almost.
Does the one second from the left still have its steels in the side elevation? Hard to tell…
Know them well – alas the heritage balustrading says it all about the interest in these buildings. Yes it does look like steel windows at the side there.
Some lovely post-war bungalows on this road too.The Ashleaf Centre across the road from the modernist houses is an example of ‘traditionalism’ done reasonably well I think, if it can be done as such – nice atmosphere inside.
@ctesiphon wrote:
Does the one second from the left still have its steels in the side elevation? Hard to tell…
Yes, I think it does. It’s about two years since that photo was taken, but I recall thinking ‘God, all four fronts have been messed up’ but that there was some early window material surviving somewhere.
The horrible thing is, if these houses come to be valued (as they should be) in the future, there may be no record of their original architectural finish.
As a BTW have any of you seen what they have done in Rome? Just back and it is heartbreaking – it looks like the entire centre has been zapped by PVC. I didn’t have a camera, so no photos, but it would be too depressing anyway.:(
Now here’s some nice glazing
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/louth/louth/knockabbey2_lge.htmlThat’s nice. I’d say most of what you can see there (but not the towerhouse) was rebuilt in 1925 – it has that Lambay Castle look about it.
Gianlorenzo, that sounds a bit depressing about Rome. – There was a surprising amount of PVC in Paris last time I was there – but not so much as to get really worried about.
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Some will know Cherry House on Sussex Terrace, just off Leeson Street Bridge, which is built in an international style of ’40s/’50s apartment building. It’s the centrepiece of a complex of apartment blocks built on the grounds of demolished Georgian house, Mespil House. All of the other blocks have been modernised with aluminium or PVC windows, but that’s no great tragedy because they are of relatively no architectural merit.
Cherry House though has been deservedly and beautifully preserved with all of its original architectural features intact … UNTIL RECENTLY 😡 . When the above picture was taken two years ago, every single steel window in the building was still in situ. But in the past year, the rot has begun 😡 …
… the VILE WHITE PLASTIC has crept into two 4th floor windows in the facade 😡 (above). The utter thoughtlessness and selfishness of the person who did this; ‘Screw the integrity of the building, with its beautiful wine brick and painted steel windows – I want my glarey white PVC windows!’ :rolleyes:
It is not a Protected Structure.If extra heat/sound proofing was required, this is what should have been done (below); the use of an inner window, as seen here on the Credit Union in Harold’s Cross.
Cherry House has amazing full-height stair landing windows at the rear (below right). If the Council don’t get the finger out and add it to the Protected Structures list, more damage and loss will be incurred.
What a fantastic building! Can’t say I’ve come across it before – was it built as a private development or Corporation built?
The stairwell block in particular is great; if there’s any consolation to be had it’s the fact that windows in communal areas are those that tend to last the longest as they’re just neglected, so these may well have some life in them yet.
Indeed overall it’s most surprising all of the flat windows have survived for as long as they have.Doesn’t granite and especially grey limestone work so well with wine brick? The perfect combination.
The brickwork in the pics there would suggest an even earlier date than 40s/50s – looks like late 1930s, which’d be interesting if built as a private development…Yeah, it was a private development – one of the very few of its kind in the city. Although it doesn’t look it from the photo, the 4th floor PVC is very noticeable – it just jumps out when you look up at the building … hugely damaging. If more goes in this winter, it will be disastrous.
This is the former Fairview Grande Cinema (below) in Fairview, a fine example of a ’30s cinema with ‘stripped classical’ feature in the centre. It’s not a Protected Structure, so in theory the steel windows could be removed or other unsympathetic alterations could occur tomorrow and it would be perfectly lawful.
An Taisce Dublin City have asked the Council to add this and Cherry House to the Protected Structures list – but they will avoid adding any more buildings at any cost. They plead lack of resources, and that they can only barely manage the ones they have. But in the meantime architecturally significant buildings are being thrashed…
Is this not the old rental complex that was owned by Irish Life and sold quietly (and quickly) to various people about ten years ago? It was said at the time that many RTE staff bought flats there, waiting for the sitting tennants to die off.
KB2On the subject of old glass (which just came up on the Pearse Street thread), Trinity College are refurbishing all of the sash windows in the Front Square of the college at the moment. That’s fine, but a lot of old glass is being lost during the work. And, worse, I believe they’re using fake-old glass in place of destroyed actual-old glass. The whole of the northern block of the square has been completed so far.
Almost all of the windows in Front Square are the original 1760s ones (apart from a few in the centre of the College Green block, which had been replaced with plate-glass sashes 100 years or more ago, then replaced back to multi-pane sashes again in the 1960s) and they contain a lot of old glass.
Here are a couple of panes of incredibly old crown glass (in the top left of the sash) in Front Square. The circular pattern indicates that they were cut from a disc. This type of glass stopped being made in the middle of the 19th century, so these panes are at least 150 years old.
Then this is the more commonly-seen old glass, called cylinder glass, made from the mid-19th up to roughly the mid-20th century (when it became possible to make perfect, blemish-less glass). It is ripple-y and often contains pock-marks.
This is one of the sash windows that has already been refurbished in the north block of the square. There are no panes of old glass left except for the one on the left in the middle, which I believe to be fake-old, as it has a different appearance; it’s really just a normal pane of glass with deliberate ripples.
I’m going to try and speak to the Conservation Officer about this, because it is not really acceptable that irreplaceable historic hand-made glass is being destroyed and possibly replaced with pretend-old glass in a key historic institution of the city like this. Trinity’s original sash windows & old glass are famous – they appear on the front of a book on the history of Irish windows and glass by Nessa Roche.
Indeed they do, and of course Craig makes reference to the Library windows also, however I wouldn’t be quite as quick to jump on Trinity. Roche’s book, as fine a publication as it is, doesn’t quite explain enough the variety of methods used, nor the popularity of certain types of glass, especially in Ireland – many references are made to UK glass or their methods that were imported, but with little expansion on their extent of use here.
The broad characteristics of crown glass and later glass such as cylinder and plate are very well explained, however the precise methods used in manufacture and more importantly the quality of output is not fully entered into. I’m no expert, but have come across countless examples of glass that cannot be neatly slotted into the categories as set out in the book, glass that looks like poor quality crown or high quality cylinder, glass that has both swirls and dimples, glass that has a highly dimpled surface, and glass that is much less blemished – all in a host of 19th century buildings of many ages.
Even comparing two images, look at the difference in quality between this and this – both supposedly cylinder glass:
Presumably Trinity is early cylinder or ‘broad’ glass, while Pearse St is a later improved version (?)
Admittedly your other pic does look dodgy Devin, but that could just be a dodgy pane of crown – it’s hard to know. I find it hard to think that Trinity would replace what even it recognises as one of the great treasures in the city with poor reproductions. The conservation project thus far looks like a job well done, even if the giant Venetians look a bit chunkier than usual now. You can certainly see the acres of priceless crown in the College Street window anyway!
@Graham Hickey wrote:
The broad characteristics of crown glass and later glass such as cylinder and plate are very well explained, however the precise methods used in manufacture and more importantly the quality of output is not fully entered into. I’m no expert, but have come across countless examples of glass that cannot be neatly slotted into the categories as set out in the book, glass that looks like poor quality crown or high quality cylinder, glass that has both swirls and dimples, glass that has a highly dimpled surface, and glass that is much less blemished – all in a host of 19th century buildings of many ages.
Yes, I was being quite blunt in my categories – there is of course a lot of variation in all types of glass. I don’t read much on it. I really just pick up what I know from observation.
@Graham Hickey wrote:
I find it hard to think that Trinity would replace what even it recognises as one of the great treasures in the city with poor reproductions.
Shocking as it is, that seems to be exactly what’s happening. I was just looking at that magnificent Venetian facing College Street earlier today, and there isn’t, I believe, a single pane of actual old glass left in it. Most of it now is modern glass, with a few panes of, I’m sure, fake-old glass.
It’s quite incredible how this could have happened. The refurbishment of the windows is about one-third complete now, possibly a bit more. All of the College Street fa
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