Kildare Street (No.4)

…………….trying to find a photograph of No.4

(It is used as an administrative centre for the National Library following a refurbishment completed in 2003)

@kinsella wrote:

I have always felt that No.4 looks very odd and out of place.. . . but do you not think the original front should be restored. Any thoughts?

That stone front must have been virtually stuck onto the original brickwork, it’s forward of the facade of no. 5 by just the depth of the stone.

However, I think it’s regarded as something of a design classic, so I don’t imagine there’s much chance of pulling it off. To me anyway, there’s a certain karma to a ‘Georgian’ getting itself re-fronted.

@kinsella wrote:

. . . the two blocks across from Kildare Street on the West side.. . . Does anyone have any images/photos of what was here before this crap was built.

I don’t recall seeing photographs, but there is a very fine line drawing somewhere in the National Library collections that shows a view from inside the forecourt at Leinster House with a very tasty ‘Dutch Billy’ appearing over the wall (on Molesworth Street, but close to the north corner with Kildare Street) where one of those office blocks and it’s neo-Georgian frontage to Molesworth Street is now.

Gunter, thanks for those photos – I couldn’t find any.

I know the house was re-fronted at a time when Art Deco styling was in vogue and it is not without merit, but it just looks unfinished to me. It’s as though whatever funds they had ran out before it could be fully realised. It does grab your attention though. I’d probably like it more had they done something different with the doorway and not removed the railings, or at least erected something more attractive than the walls there at present.
What do you think?

Agreed – there is a certain irony or as you put it, karma, in the building having retained it’s C18 interior whilst having it’s facade changed, unlike it’s neighbour No.5 which followed the usual Dublin template of facade retention with gutted interior.

I used to enjoy the fact that it had the roman numeral IV over the door and since the restoration this has been replaced by an (albeit Art Deco style) 4 – maybe it was confusing dull people?

@kinsella wrote:

Also, on the topic of Kildare street but unrelated to No.4, I was reading through the “New Fossils for the Natural Science Museum” thread and looking at the aerial photograph from the 1980’s (posted by GrahamH) of the two blocks across from Kildare Street on the West side.

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Given Larry Goodman now owns the Setanta Centre (the block to the foreground) and the adjacent hotel there’s a strong chance that it will eventually be redeveloped

RoryW: agree completely about the loss of the ‘IV’; that’s the only thing I would restore. I always think this place looks wonderfully enigmatic – reminders of the song Green Door – and possibly a mysterious exclave of the GLAFAMI in Molesworth St. To remove the cladding would give you another worthy but dull Georgian, so why bother?

its a quirky diversion, i’ve always liked it …. the contrast between it and the college of physicians couldn’t be more stark, probably just as well we have the georgian to bridge the two !

I came across this old photograph (in the National Library collection) showing the original facade of no. 4 Kildare Street.

The picture’s a bit grainy, but the layout of the facade is pretty clear and it’s almost identical to the design of the facade of no. 2 Kildare Place (demolished) further up the street.

A National Library photograph of nos. 2 & 3 Kildare Place, before their demolition.

Freddy O’Dwyer says that no. 2 Kildare Place was designed by Richard Castle and that it was executed after his death in 1751 by John Ensor. If no. 4 was built three years earlier (as recorded by Christine casey), that can only mean that this house was designed by Castle also. The elements of the facade, the tri-partite windows on the second and third floors, over a first floor Venetian window, over a similar width doorway, is very distinctive and it would surely be unthinkable for an architect of Castle’s stature to have lifted the design from someone else.

I imagine Georgian types will find this mildly interesting, but since we’re on Kildare Street, something of much more interest is that drawing, referred to earlier in the thread, showing ‘Dutch Billys’ on Molesworth Street as seen from inside the courtyard at Leinster House.

The drawing is by Samual Brocas, dated 1818.

In contrast to Kildare Street, where early Georgian houses are being built in the late 1740s, Molesworth Street, as a product of the 1720s and 30s was conceived and developed as a Dutch gabled street and this Brocas sketch shows us a glimpse of that streetscape just as the street was about to complete the process of concealing that gabled heritage behind Georgian-conforming flat parapets.