Just back from London: What a Beautiful Mish-Mash!
- This topic has 38 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 25 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Well if we could ‘imitate’ the very ‘best’ that would’nt be bad now would it, afterall the Romans imitated the Greeks and they did’nt do a bad job and many a fine painter/ artist copied the work of their master. (ie Van Dyck and Rubans copied Titian) By the way did’nt Michael Scott have something to do with the design of the old Cork Opera House…..what a dreadful design that was! It did’nt even address the river frontage did it.
In response to what bunch said we need always be careful though when mixing the radically new with the old. (I mean the Pompidou in Paris and R.Rodgers Lloyds Bank in London are a bit calamitous within their streetscapes are’nt they). We somewhat tried that business but blindly in the past here and most failed …now we have a conservative backlash where nothing slightly outlandish will be built. Can I say that the new Dublin docks are emerging as one hell of a visually boring place with nothing to note(ie building height and styles are a big snooze) The DDDA are most conservative and over cautious.Could we have some foreign intervention and invention again please.
Well, Bunch certainly the idea of ‘inbetweening’ with buildings doesn’t work in my view. A bit like putting grey inbetween white and black. No contrast.
It’s simply smoothing the gaps. A mock Georgian DOES indeed demean/devalue the real thing alongside it. Person looks up, goes hmmm… looks like that new one beside it only older. Maybe IT should have nice PVC windows too!
This smoothing effect just creates blandness, nothing to catch & interest the eye. Ever see those smooth, anally retentive airbrush paintings?
J
Hi John could I ask you and everyone else how you would have dealt with the reconstruction of Mountjoy Square, Dublin. A Georgian square of terraced houses of which the west and south sides had sadly fallen into decay and delapidation. Although I wholly destest the use of pastiche but do you think that this was an exception to build in mock Georgian style. Cheers!
Perhaps this was an exception as anything other may have resulted in a visually jarring of the square.
As Mountjoy Sq. is and was a Georgian Square, the reinstating of the terraces was without doubt, the correct thing to do.
I hope this doesn’t just seem like a cop-out but isn’t there a difference between mock/pastiche and a quality reconstruction?
Types of materials ie: PVC and wood, new versus old Brick types & dimensions…
Of course this doesn’t address wether the square should have it’s original style preserved or not. That would be subjective wouldn’t it? Just like the listing of buildings.
Your question is a worthwhile one .
I dont think the reconstruction of Mountjoy Square is a pastische. I have noted that all the windows along the road front are up & down sash & the original proportions of the elevations have been retained.
All that is lacking are the doorways, the use of inferior quality building materials(new brick & in some cases PVC windows) and badly executed finishes.
Look to Merrion Square and the Merrion Hotel to see how a reconstruction can be achieved (facade only) that has a use of materials and execution of finishes almost identical the original Georgian elevations. However, modern reconstuctions would be structurally superior & more watertight than the original
Well there we have it then, reconstruction/pastiche is quite valid in certain circumstances….but then the question is where does one draw the line. To examine Mountjoy square (of which I agreed with it’s reconstruction) it is not really a total faithful reconstruction, is it. On the outside it does the job like wallpaper but inside we have our modern day sub divisioned appartments and I’m sure any mouldings etc…..are ‘Woodies’ specials and not the genuine stuccodor job.So it is still a bit of a sham with it’s still building frame hidden beneath, etc… But still it is a lot better than the total mock Georgian pastiche mess futher down the road on Gardiner Street with it’s underground car park,tiny doorways and ridiculous rusticated garden furniture with cherub fountain .
M Yarwood,your’e right, the opera house did not address the river frontage at all. The reason for that was that the building was designed for a different site, on The Western Road, where Jury’s Hotel is now, near U.C.C. It would have been positioned so that the front of the building faced the southern channel of the Lee, and the Western Road, and in fact that infamous Northern Wall would not be visible at all. Due to objections about location, particularly from regular users of the Opera House, who campaigned for it to be built on the site of the old Theatre, it was decided to move it back, without changing the design.A totally ridiculous idea.Putting the four-sided illuminated Toyota advertising signage on the roof was worse.
While reading the discussion on the merits of reconstructing Mountjoy Square, I think it leads nicely on to the issue of ESB’s Fitzwilliam Street offices. Would a similar reconstruction work here, or should something completely different be built instead. Personally, I think a reconstruction could work, if the replicas were built with authentic materials and were built to the original site plans, with a high standard of craftmanship.(i.e. not just Georgian facades in front of a modern office block, but an accurate reconstruction of the original houses.)
I would tend to agree with you – particularly as regards ‘special cases’, ie: the Goergian mile etc. I’d like appropriate signage of some sort to the effect of “Re-Built 2000” or something.
Maybe you could get some precast system to deliver a whole georgian façade to your site and you could install them everywhere and wow!!! imagine we will all be living, working, drinking in a Georgian building! NICE!
All this talk of facadism is giving me the willies!!
What would really have been interesting on Mountjoy Sq etc would have been to re-establish the plot boundaries and insert ‘modern’ architecture based on these boundaries and on the notion of the ‘townhouse in a square’. Not very rational as a reaction I suppose but there are precedents – I remember looking at Lescaze’s own town house, built to the same proportions among a row of 19th cent ‘brownstones in New York and more recently an AR issue illustrating a reinterpretation of the 4 storey townhouse in a similar setting for an art collector both look amazing and fit in very well.
Otherwise my own feeling is that if the ‘Georgian’ facade is to be re-used themn the original room and spatial arrangements internally must be re-created to reflect this.
Personally I find the idea of all those fake facades on Mountjoy Sq hiding rabbit warrens of shoebox apartments somewhat depressing.
Well there we have it. Looking at all the opinions one can conclude that architectural styles should always be applied appropriately within the different contexts and environments of a city.It was correct to reconstruct Mountjoy Square even it it’s not totally faithful.It was a disgrace in the first place this area and Gardiner street was allowed to go to rack and ruin. I always advocated too Spencer Dock…now a no-mans land. Ok it was ruthless and corporate but if dimmed down it would have add another aspect to the city of Dublin. Too bad beligerency won in the end.
In response to JK’s point, I would agree that modern buildings inserted into an older streetline can work very well. Personally, I think that places like Dame St., or some streets in Temple Bar, where Georgian, Victorian and Modern buildings are interspersed are some of the most beautiful, diverse and stimulating streets in Dublin. Howevever, on Fitzwilliam St. there are about a dozen houses all in a row to be replaced, on a street which is lined with nothing else but Georgian townhouses for over 800 metres. I think in these circumstances a dozen or so modern interpretations of townhouses all lumped together in an otherwise homogenous street would not work particularly well, and would not do anything to create the kind of “beautiful mish-mash” which inspired this thread in the first place.
I dunno bout Dame Street ie the Cental Bank…great modern building but when you look at it (really look at it) one can see it awkwardly placed in it’s setting (behind a pastiche reconstructing to the right)and as regards it’s plaza well it seem too cluttered with the trees, ‘golden tree sculpture’ and new railings. There is no overall layout or symmetry!…….True!
Presumably these squares such as Merrion etc.. were conceived originally as a stylistically coherent unit [not sure if this was a concious artistic statement or purely practical – posh georgian version of a council estate?]
If so and because they’re loved by the public in this original unadulterated format, it would merit a ‘special case’ categorisation wouldn’t it?
I presume however [who knows everything?] that the majority of our cities have been an evolving mish-mash for centuries anyway – the illusory coherence being mainly due to the discoloured varnish of time and dirt!
Certain areas would seem to me to be worth preservation, others not – but, it’s all subjective isn’t it?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
