Leinster House

I don’t belive you! I knew it! I just knew it!
I’ve always been deeply suspicious of their cumbersome profiles but never dared venture inside the Houses’s hallowed grounds to find out what they were made of.
They look extremely clinical even from the other side of Kildare St, uPVC dosn’t surprise me in the least, although it disappoints me greatly.

And I read in the Sunday Times a few weeks ago that the security huts at the gates are not to be removed but simply redesigned. Hence I am assuming that the railings to the front are also not going, nor the Victorian entrance lodges/gateposts, nor the barbarrac hoardings going down the sides of the Ntl Library & Museum that are pawned of as some sort of Victoriana.

Just imagine how fantastic this space could be, a vast imposing piazzia enclosed on 3 sides by the country’s most important institutions and architectural stock, imaginative paving and lighting, water features, benches, information on the buildings and the city, a fantastic tourist area, a wonderful backdrop for news reports and satelite up-links, a fantastic image to convey to the rest of the world on election days and events of national importance.
Spectacular floodlighting at night, highlighting the wonderful variation of colour, features, orders, ornementation and textures of the buildings, and culminating the vista up Molesworth Street in a manner it deserves.

It would create a whole new area in the city.

It is disgraceful, shameful and bloody typical of this city not to recognise such potential for this space, esp how affecting it is on an international level, and more typical to do nothing about it.

If we cannot have our Parliament House on College Green back, the very least we can do is improve on what we do have.

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
IJust imagine how fantastic this space could be, a vast imposing piazzia enclosed on 3 sides by the country’s most important institutions and architectural stock, imaginative paving and lighting, water features, benches, information on the buildings and the city, a fantastic tourist area, a wonderful backdrop for news reports and satelite up-links, a fantastic image to convey to the rest of the world on election days and events of national importance.
Spectacular floodlighting at night, highlighting the wonderful variation of colour, features, orders, ornementation and textures of the buildings, and culminating the vista up Molesworth Street in a manner it deserves.

Plus piss, vomit, fast food wrappers and winos…. keep the railings

I’m not a fan of this new trend to remove railings from public places

Ah yes but what a wonderful area it would make for our paint-throwing friends to destroy a historic building – in the name of peace/farmers/students etc.

Not a chance of the railings ever coming down! In two words – security issues

Eh, fast food wrappers and vomit on the salubrious southside? (although yes, there is that club on the corner of Kildare St)

But what is the point in having these prized buildings if you can’t appreciate them?
Put it this way, if you set out to design a national parliament building, adjacent to 2 national institutions, the existing set up of offensive railings etc is most certainly not what you would come up with, indeed it would be considered grossly offensive, symbolising ‘keeping the little people out’ and there’d be uproar over it.

And surely we cannot let a minority of winos etc destroy our vision for the city. And as for security concerns, sure you can walk by the railings as it is! If they were to be removed, a strong security presence could still be held, with suitable posts for guards underneath parts of the colonnades of the Ntl Library & Museum, on either side.
It’s just a lack of vision and foresight that clouds such developments.

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
And surely we cannot let a minority of winos etc destroy our vision for the city.

Sure why not, the planners and councillors have been doing that for decades!

OMG, what is it with this country and uPVC? Its EVERYWHERE! I really lothe the stuff, uPVC doors, windows, facias, cladding. and that ugly cheap tacky “Tile effect” roof cladding stuff! Whats wrong with wood? whats wrong with tile or slate! Soon there will be piles of PortaKabins surrounding Lenster house!

It is destroying this country and the UK. Whereas the UK arereverting back to wood and sashes big time now on more upmarket homes, Ireland persists in uPVC.
What I really hate is it’s manufacturers/suppliers coming up with new ways of wooing period home owners with the latest ‘period’ features, like PVC sashes and ‘Georgian’ plastic grids between the double panes.

If people were asked if they would like to have a plastic coated front door, windows, guttering, downpipes and facias they’d run a mile. But if its PVC, ahhhh, well then…
It is the most revolting material concievable, and is destroying new and old buildings.

(although admittedly, matt grey windows in office buildings look rather good)

Its a pitty uPVC isnt confined to offices! The “wood effect” brown stuff looks worse dont you think? and thise terrible “stained glass” doors, CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP! (I’m so angry i’ve turned into a chicken!) you know what i mean. I still cant believe they put them in Lenster house. It like most things in there now is criminal!

Along with doors windows and cladding there is now a trend in uPVC fencing and uPVC gates! Shiney white plastic may have been fashionable for 80’s shoes but not for gates!! Honestly!

Apologies J Seerski, as far as I can remember it was you who posted about PVC windows in Hillsbourgh Castle, I said I could’nt see any on the main facade. Unfortunatly you were correct, PVC does ‘grace’ it’s main front.
And they’re not just imitation sashes, but the nastiest, crudest, slap-in-the-faceiest piles of tat that one could conjure up for use here, they have no relief whatsoever, have the obligatory plastic grids between the double panes, and of all things, open inwards by tilting from the top!
Considering the White House had old- fashioned Georgian sashes installed in it’s early 20th century West Wing to respect the rest of the house, and Hillsbourgh could’nt even do it in the 90s, George Bush must’nt be overtly impressed.

(yeah ok, like he cares, I’m just trying to be current)

Oh God – I just saw the dreaded window in Leinster House – last one on the right in the main block on the ground floor. What are they thinking.

Why can’t the Unionists get Hillsborough’s windows sorted out. After all they’re always singing about The Sash…..

Sorry

‘The Window’

The statement has some gravitas dosnt it.

Annnnyway, looking at a picture of Leinster House, from around 1890s/1900, the building has Victorian plate glass windows on the ground floor, but the original Georgian sashes up above. So the OPW, in their efforts to reinstate Georgiana put in PVC??!!

Victorian windows still prevail on the garden front of the building on the ground floor.

And what about Aras an Uachtarain. For years it has had expansive Victorian plate glass windows, all of which were changed for the visit of Victoria herself. I’ve always been unsure as to whether these should be replaced with Georgian sashes, certainly they’d look much better and be in keeping with the house, but then, the Victorian additions form part of the history & fabric of the house too. Theres no doubt that the classical proportions of the Georgians would look so much better.
And there are also some grossly inappropriate 20/30s windows in the garden facade, directly beneath the garden portico that hav’nt been replaced.

Hey if you an be in Lucan – let OPW bring Lucan to you!!!

i wish i hadn’t been told because now i realise that the windows above the merrion sq enterance of the ng is also upvc and that’s really annoying me.

as for leinster house, keep the main railings, they are handsome, they enclose the space and helps keep it nice, but remove the railings seperating the main open space from the library and the museum.

On that I will compromise.
PVC on the Ntl Gallery? Surely not. I’ll be passing later, I’ll have a look.

Yesterday I went to have a closer look at Leinster House but could’nt bring myself to go through the main gates so I went down the side of the Ntl Museum instead. And uggh, shiver etc, the window looks even worse up close. And that Victorian addition that links the House to the Museum, admittedly I’m not sure if it’s are PVC, they do look somewhat clinical, although that could be because they are new/restored.

There HAS to be a good reason behind all this. But untill the reason is known – let everyone keep their eyes fixed on the pavement.

Sorry to spoil the fun, but this is a big load of nonsense. The OPW say the PVC windows in Leinster House are temporary, and there to protect the wooden windows behind which will be re-revealed in all their splendour once the work is completed.
“Did you really think we’d put PVC into Leinster House,” the OPW official asked aghast.
“Er, yes, I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

Click.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Well at least we were right about them being PVC.

Well the windows on the Ntl Gallery ar’nt PVC although I can see why one may think that. They’re those chunky ‘English’ Victorian white painted windows that are not dissimilar to PVC when seen from a distance.

Thank god they are not staying! I di some investigation myself and i descovered to my horror that uPVC windows are not so popular because they are less expensive. They can be up to three times as expensive as wooden windows. I was told by the cust service rep of Irelands leading uPVC manufacturer that they are so popular because they are “more pleasing to the eye offer more security and are practically maintainance free”. SO its not cost it is lazyness.

You are right Graham about the ngi, i went to have a closer look today and they are wood. thank god for that.

Originally posted by Aken
I was told by the cust service rep of Irelands leading uPVC manufacturer that they are so popular because they are “more pleasing to the eye offer more security and are practically maintainance free”. SO its not cost it is lazyness.

That’s such a relief to me too. I was afraid that the Irish were using PVC on grounds of cost. At least now I can rest easy in the leaba because its an aesthetic choice 😉

Rest easy? When innocent peole are stupidly sealing themselves into their homes in a horrific eye bashing glass and plastic coffins!

Its a scientific fact, uPVC windows caused Thirdworld debt, aids and ugly people!

The fact that its an vasthetic problem is even worse! Has the country no taste?
Its purely the practicality of the material that makes it so popular.
In my experience 99% of people choose it for this reason.

Still that 1% out of several hundred thousand people is a hell of a lot of people who think their plastic wondows look great, Thats really frightning!

uPVC is also proven to cause disproportionate mass hysteria as witnessed above…

hysteria is not uncommon in this forum….

Mass hysteria – yes, disproportionate – No. I think if you compare the amount of times i’ve pissed myself with anger seeing some fool grinning with glee as he has just festooned his house with these horrible excuse for windows with the amount of people who have installed them its actually quiet small. I saw a 300yo schoolhouse the other day, sometime in the non recent past it had been divided in to who small houses, still bearing their original windows. And quiet pretty. Until…… The other day on one side of the house the original (to the time it was divided) door had been ripped out and replaced with a plastic abomination and to add insult to injury it had a signature “stained galss panell with pink orchids i believe.

An Taisce complains about PVC windows
Frank McDonald
Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

An Taisce has complained to Dublin City Council that PVC windows are being installed in a listed building in Temple Bar that houses the Green Party headquarters.

In a letter to the council’s planning enforcement manager, Ms Bernie Conlon, it said these works at the rear of 5a Fownes Street were being undertaken without planning permission

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2003/0423/4138271273HM5WINDOWS.html

WHAT!…..the Green Party have installed PVC windows in their offices? …..Those great bastions and defenders of Mother Nature,…. John Gormless, Trish (Mad) McKenna, Trevor Sargeant Major, and the other forgetable half -wits……etc …..whom are willing to chain themselves to trees so as to get maximum exposure for the party and jeopardise and hold up the much needed revamp of Ireland’s premiere street….and disagree just for the sake of it putting the Green party’s popularity and vote grabbing agenda first.
I’m not surprised . Sure any of them would’nt know a weed from a flower.

Lads if you read the article there is no evidence that the Green Party even knew this was happening….

Mr Eamon Ryan, the Green Party TD, said he wasn’t aware of the installation of PVC windows in the Fownes Street building. “We have no control over it as we are only tenants. However, I would take An Taisce’s view on board. “

I’m sorry i cant read it, “premium content”.
J. Seerski. I agree, ban them, fine those how have them and shoot those who wont remove them… with plactic bullets. Irony is always funny!

Maybe they’ll chain themselves to the old timber frames as a protest…..
I believe the original window frames were there since Daniel O’Connell times, Parnell had the pleasure to gaze out of them…..Padraig Pearse often cleaned them when he had a part time job as a window cleaner…and they witnessed the 1916 uprising too. Maybe Trish Mckenna will raise this issue in the European Parliment.

And what good has that ever done for anybody?

I think i’ll start a charity, the SAVE THE WINDOWS FOUNDATION.

Perhaps they want plastic windows, in an effort to save the trees they are so fond of chaining themselves to. ( I shouldn’t jest i’ve been known to chain myself to a tree or two aswell)