Leinster House, National Museum & Library complex
- This topic has 173 replies, 41 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 8 months ago by
.
- Posts
I think this would better suit those massive FF egos. :rolleyes:The Knesset is a nice 1960s example, or how about that floaty pulpit one from Star Wars? We don’t want to end up with some ‘Seanad only’ Meath County Council lookalike.
so is there modern plan of leinster house to show where all these poor civil servants are working?
How about dismantling the Leinster house Dáil chamber and reconstructing it with a contemporary roof design at college green? The former house of lords could be used as a seanad chamber.
There is really much more space around here than people imagine: extending the complex north to Fleet St. (obliterating that multi story car park on the way!) and west to Anglesea St. gives you just as much room as at present in Kildare St.
Building on Leinster Lawn would disrupt one of the last intact historical buliding ensembles in the city: are there any examples of this kind of thing being done well in our recent history? We have built very little to the highest modern aesthetic standards in dublin in recent times and this is no place for an experiment.
Maybe Leinster House could be reassigned as a taoiseach’s or presidential residence?
PeterFitz: thanks for the tip; I’ll try that. I feel a bit like Candide having innocently triggered such a debate about LL. It did have some purpose when the House was a private house, but the integrity is already compromised and it did at one point host a major exhibition in the mid-19thC.
I do like the Dail chamber, but I agree the upper stages and the curtain(!) are seriously naff. The Chamber is interesting in that it is a compromise between the Westminster layout (opposing benches and therefore ‘confrontational’) and the ‘auditorium’ model (and therefore ‘consensual’). I don’t buy any of this ‘consensual’ mush; politics is a blood sport and government is deadly serious. So, indeed GrahamH, keep the Dail chamber.
But the Lawn is still a good place for the Senate House, with ancillary bldgs. You’ll not be surprised gunter that I’d prefer a more symmetrical layout (with perhaps a mere ‘neo-classical’ hint – Benito wasn’t all bad) than your notional plan, but a good contemporary infill would also fit the bill. Anyway, this is fantasy architecture, so:
Our democracy is more derived from Rome than Greece and isn’t that picture of Catiline cowering alone while being denounced by Cicero so inspired (‘Sic semper tyrannis!’). The Curia Iulia might look like a garden shed stripped of its ornament, but the Senatus Romanus did operate from this modest building. Pics from Wikipedia.my god that carpet is dreadful
@johnglas wrote:
I do like the Dail chamber . . . .
. . . but the Lawn is still a good place for the Senate House, with ancillary bldgs.No. stop this we’re diluting the idea.
The idea was: Build a new parliament house on Leinster Lawn, two chambers, no compromises!
The existing mahogany job is an ok lecture hall, (built as such by the RDS, was it not?) but it’s no great shakes and nothing historical ever happened in it, anything interesting happened in College Green or the Mansion House.
Without a proper parliament chamber, this idea just becomes an office block with a board room. I’m not sacrificing Leinster Lawn for that.
I thought the hit was: getting the culchies out of Leinster House completely and adding it, and the lecture hall, back into the Kildare Street cultural complex mix.
For once, can we not do the usual half-assed Irish thing.
We want a purpose built parliament building; we want a new pedestrian link through this currently impenetrable block from Molesworth Street to Merrion Square; we want the biggest and best Georgian house in the city restored and open to the public and, we want a restored, expanded and enhanced ‘dead zoo’,
don’t we?
*and yes, the carpet has to go*.
Sorry, sir…
Choc horror as Dail sweet shop costs over €1 million
SOME DÃIL members were choking on their choccies when the new sweetie shop opened recently at parliament’s Kildare Street entrance: just how much did the impressive structure cost?
The new “An Siopa” was designed by hotshot architects Bucholz McEvoy to mirror the classy entrance pavilion next door for which they won an award.
They also designed the entrance huts on the Merrion Square side as part of an overall commission from the OPW. All very well, but Olivia Mitchell TD, for one, wondered at the cost of such a glorious chocolate box, in light of the fact that it took about three years to build. “It is effectively a lean-to on a clear site so it is hard to know how it could take so long, especially since the OPW has experience in this area,” she says. “It became a sort of joke in Leinster House, we felt the Taj Mahal took less time to build.”
Having asked a question in the Dáil, she was told that while the final accounts had not been completed, it was reckoned that the new building cost €800,000 excluding VAT and internal fittings. Total cost then is like to be over €1 million.
The Siopa is roughly 40sq m (431sq ft) – the size of many a household extension. The latest Bruce Shaw Handbook says that shops are costing around €1,050-€1,600 to build per sq m. Really smart commercial buildings can cost up to €6,000 per sq m, according to an industry source. The Siopa is coming in at around €20,000 per sq m, which may not surprise many a homeowner whose extension ended up costing way over the builders and architects estimates.
No doubt the costs were eaten up by the impressive building materials, conservation studies and cutting-edge technology: and the fridges deemed necessary to keep chocolate from melting what with all that glass.
For really hot days, the building has sun visors, window defrosters and adjustable air nozzles.
As chocoholics know, you just can’t put a price on well preserved confectionery.
Irish Times 28 February 2008
Total cost then is like to be over €1 million.
@gunter wrote:
NThe existing mahogany job is an ok lecture hall, (built as such by the RDS, was it not?) but it’s no great shakes and nothing historical ever happened in it, anything interesting happened in College Green or the Mansion House..[/I]
Er – other than the fact it has been our parliament since 1922 then no nothing interesting has happened there (akin to saying nothing interesting has happened at westminster since the germans bombed it but hey-ho)
I think that any spend on a new parliament building of any sort would be frowned on, particularly given the current state of government popularity. Leinster house will be rewired and made structurally sound and none of the flights of fancy will happen
if only we had someone of Haughey’s vision to spend tens of millions on it while the economy was in shite eh?
You mean while construction costs are low?
ah touché
🙂
gunter, it is a common perception that most of the Dáil Chamber dates to the 1890s, when in fact the vast majority of it dates to the conversion of 1924-1926. All of the furnishings were purpose-made for parliament, and the lecture theatre throughly altered. Little other than the columns and railings (much reproduction) remains.
Rather than rehearsing some details I’ll just paste this link to an older thread:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=5325
(frightening that was two years ago – seems like last week).
There are some extraordinary photographs of the lecture theatre from 1922-1924 with an enormous and extremely dubious temporary platform structure raising the entire floor level to that of lower balcony level shown here (1890s).
A railing of industrial proportions protected the Ceann Comhairle from plunging to a certain death on the floor below.
I would also just add that prior to the erection of the ravishing curtain and ill-proportioned timber panelling and doors at journo gallery level, there were once two handsome mahogany doorcases with lintel tops supported by scrolled brackets. It looks like these were removed in the 1930s in favour of the current arrangement.
I absolutely agree that any new parliament building on the Lawn must have dignity of purpose and host both Houses. There is little point otherwise. A glorifed office block, however well designed, would fall flat in the context of what would be lost, while also completely defeating the purpose of giving architectural expression to parliament. Exactly the same situation as at present would ensue – a compromised white elephant would become the public face while parliament continued to be conducted in a converted shed out the back.
I would propose moving the entire lower Dáil ensemble to an elegant contemporary setting within the new building. It would require real ingenuity, and have the potential to be absolutely spectacular.
I don’t like the modern parliament chambers either, european parliament & scottish parliament chambers leave me cold, give me the House of Commons with everyone packed in any day. 🙂
@Rory W wrote:
Er – other than the fact it has been our parliament since 1922 then no nothing interesting has happened there (akin to saying nothing interesting has happened at westminster since the germans bombed it but hey-ho)
OK, on mature reflection, it was wrong of me to be dismissive of our public representatives and their acivities in de house, but if we look at our school history books, most of the momentous stuff, Grattan’s parliament, the first Dail etc., took place in the other buildings mentioned. To me, this fact gives us the opportunity to consider the creation of an entirely new building, an opportunity that other countries, with purpose built parliament houses, don’t have, or would never need.
Remember, the idea (not mine) of a new purpose built parliament house, came about as an alternative to the major structural interventions that, it was reported, Leinster House may require to keep it functioning as the Oireachtas, you know, moving forward.
And OK it was also wrong of me to refer to our elected representatives as ‘culchies’, when perhaps little over half of them are actual culchies.
@GrahamH wrote:
gunter, it is a common perception that most of the Dáil Chamber dates to the 1890s, when in fact the vast majority of it dates to the conversion of 1924-1926. All of the furnishings were purpose-made for parliament, and the lecture theatre throughly altered. Little other than the columns and railings (much reproduction) remains.
I didn’t know that Graham.
You’re probably right that the current Dail chamber has significant architectural merit in it’s own right, I had never thought of it that way. The mahogany always reminded me of a court room and the blue carpet, if it smelled of popcorn, I’d say cinema.
I do like your last idea: relocate the good parts of the Dail chamber to a new parliament house on Leinster Lawn, This would have the added benefit of uncluttering the south wing of Leinster House and maybe increase the connection possibilities between the National Museum on Kildare Street and the Natural History Museum on Merrion Street.
The possibilities with this idea are just endless.
If this gets off the ground, it will elevate johnglas to guru status!
Are we ready for this?:)
P.S. Is that a futuristic robot, or a prototype espresso machine in your b&w photo?
@SunnyDub wrote:
I don’t like the modern parliament chambers either, european parliament & scottish parliament chambers leave me cold, give me the House of Commons with everyone packed in any day. 🙂
some of the ones pictured don’t seem to have sides facing each other either. Sure that’s nonsense. How does one wag ones finger, wave one’s briefing or roll ones eyes in full view of the speaker if the adversarial nature of the political game is designed out?
Interesting shot of the original layout Graham, it all looks a bit precarious !
@GrahamH wrote:
I would propose moving the entire lower Dáil ensemble to an elegant contemporary setting within the new building. It would require real ingenuity, and have the potential to be absolutely spectacular.
Would definitely agree with that. Any modern chamber i’ve seen really has little to recommend itself – I’m just not convinced that we would end up with anyting better than the lower layout we have now should it be decided to go down the road of entirely new build. Saving the lower portion and setting in a completely new context would get my vote 😀
Here’s Canberra ( I hate the notion of political capitals )
Given Ireland’s history, its probably one of few chambers in Europe that dates from the early 1900’s. Most European states have the benefit of long established parliament houses with lavish chambers.
Whatever happens, the area between Leinster House, National Museum & the National Library needs to be re-designed & returned to the city ! And as usual, the London Planes out front have to go.
Interesting that Canberra has chosen the ‘compromise’ model with both opposing and semi-circular banches, but both chambers look sterile and are too ‘exploded’ – you need intimacy (don’t we all!) while ensuring public access.
It’s not true, incidentally, that ‘most’ European countries have very ancient parliamentary chambers – most states were autocracies with little need for parliaments or assemblies; only after the Revolution of 1789 did France get one (and in spite of what Westminster thinks, modern democracy stems form France and America) – even Westminster dates only from the 1840s (Barry and Pugin). There are very few European countries with a continual history of democracy since their founding: Belgium, Norway, Finland and, of course, Ireland (possibly Switzerland, but that’s a very special case). So, the Dail chamber does matter and it’s important to conserve it or the spirit of it.The guru (gunter, how could you!?).
@johnglas wrote:
even Westminster dates only from the 1840s (Barry and Pugin).
1840s/1940s 🙂
Canberra’s lower house is nonetheless quite pleasant in spite of its vacuousness, with effective use of colour and materials. If ever one wanted to experience the workings of parliament from inside a giant Aero bar, this is the place to be.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
