Leinster Lawn expected to be restored during summer recess 2005
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I quite like the department of agriculture building I must admit. Somehow I think it works quite well on the Kildare Street side.
Nice images of Kildare Place Graham.
I agree: all of those square precast units repeated over and over are oddly attractive – they must appeal in a logical, Duplo building block kind of way. And for such an enormous building, including a considerable height, it’s remarkably unobtrusive. It would appear to achieve this by having little or no service layer between the floors – I suspect it might not have air conditioning given all of those hundreds of windows open (in contrast to some of Stephenson’s other work), and it’s quite a shallow building with windows on all elevations. Its monolithic scale is also greatly reduced because there’s no principal facade; indeed most of the building is pretty much hidden in one way or another!
Yes the sneaky intrusion of its upper floor over the parapet of Government Buildings is one of the little-often mentioned planning mistakes of the 1960s. Without question this ought to be rectified before/when the Department ever move out.
It’s much worse once you’re inside the gates.
In a way it’s interesting how times have changed, both in terms of Government Buildings itself and how underestimated it was at the time (partly to do with its condition), and in how planning applications are compiled and processed. Renderings of sightlines and visual impact assessments would be central to a modern-day development application of this kind.
Not that air con plant and water tanks aren’t still slipping through the net…
@Today’s Irish Times wrote:
Plans to restore Leinster Lawn to be reviewed
Olivia KellyPlans to restore Leinster Lawn, which was paved over almost 10 years ago to create a “temporary” car park for the Dáil, are to be reviewed at an Oireachtas Commission meeting next week.
A delegation from the Office of Public Works (OPW) is to appear before the commission to discuss plans for a two-storey underground car park, underneath Leinster House, which would facilitate the reinstatement of the lawn facing on to Merrion Square.
Leinster Lawn was replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a “temporary” measure during the construction of new facilities for Leinster House. The planning permission for the work at the time required that the lawn be reinstated after the works on Leinster House were completed in 2000. However, this was never done.
The car park on the lawn is now mainly used by Dáil staff and journalists. Politicians have their own reserved spaces to one side of the lawn or in front of Leinster House. The facility is available free to all serving and former members of the Oireachtas.
Promises of an underground car park have been made since 2000. The OPW in late 2006 told the Oireachtas Commission, an 11-member group of TDs and Senators which is responsible for the facilities at Leinster House, that a car park under the building was feasible and could be completed by the beginning of 2011. The OPW had expected an answer from the commission earlier this year, but no decision was made.
However, the new commission, formed since the general election, has scheduled a meeting with the OPW on December 12th to discuss the matter and it is expected that detailed proposals will be put forward.
The restoration of the lawn has been the subject of consistent campaigning by environmentalists over the years, including Green TD John Gormley, now the Minister for the Environment.
A spokesman for Mr Gormley said that he has no involvement in, or responsibility for, the project in his new role. A decision on the project, which will also require Government approval, would allow the car parking at the Kildare Street side of Leinster House to be removed.
The meeting next week is also likely to focus on the long-term development of the Leinster House complex. Proposals including the possible construction of a new Dáil chamber, or major works on the existing chamber and the expansion of the complex to take over the neighbouring Department of Agriculture offices, were made by the OPW to the commission in September 2006.
The expected increase in TD members over the coming years will require the expansion of Dáil facilities. Leinster House, built as the home of the earls of Kildare in the mid-18th century, was bought from the family a century later by the RDS.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/1203/1196375209810.html
2015 anybody?
If it goes underground, will it be Bertie’s ultimate “Dig-out?”
Kb.Thought this was a good time to dig this up again. Walked passed it on a Sunday recently and noted how impressive it looked when not being used as a car park.
Irish Times 26th September 2008 wrote:Flooding and the craze for paving*
Madam, – Like Minister for the Environment John Gormley, I am extremely worried about the flooding caused by people paving over their front gardens for car-parking ( The Irish Times, September 24th). This is happening at a furious rate. Just the other day I was walking along Merrion Square and I saw that some lout had paved over the front lawn of Leinster House. – Yours, etc,
AIDAN WALSH,
Rathgar Road,
Dublin 6.
Well, of course, we’ve heard all this before, but for what it’s worth…
@The Sunday Times, October 26th wrote:
Paradise regained behind the Dail
Leinster Lawn to be restored after car-park plans are scrapped due to lack of funds Colin Coyle
They paved “paradise†and put up a parking lot. Now the government has been told that Leinster Lawn, a once lush green area behind the Dail and Seanad, will be restored.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) told Oireachtas officials last week that it plans to replant it in spring after plans for a 500-space underground car park at Leinster House were scrapped due to a lack of funds.
The lawn was taken away and replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a “temporary†measure. Planning permission terms from Dublin city council stated that it should be reinstated by the end of 2000. This never happened, and the site now has a reputation as one of the capital’s biggest eyesores.
The space has been used as a parking apron for Dail staff, journalists and occasionally, TDs and senators, who also have their own parking spaces to the side of Leinster House.
More recently the OPW announced it would build an underground car park whichwould allow the lawn to be replanted, but this has been deemed financially unviable.
An OPW spokesman said: “We plan to reinstate the lawn during the growing season next year.†Developers proved reluctant to take on the underground car park in a public private partnership. The Oireachtas argued that the park could be self-financing in 30 years.
Restoring the lawn has been the subject of campaigning by environmentalists since 1999, including by John Gormley, Minister for the Environment.
Ian Lumley of An Taisce said: “It’s about time . . . The Department of the Environment has a new strategy to prevent people from paving over their front lawns to reduce localised flooding, so it’s high time they heeded their own advice.â€
Leinster House was built in the late 18th century by the Earl of Kildare, who predicted that others would follow from the more genteel northside. The Georgian squares around Leinster House became the destination of choice for aristocrats.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5014954.ece
Removal of Dáil car park opposed by some members of commission
MARK HENNESSY, Political Correspondent
THE TEMPORARY car park in Leinster House, which covered a historic lawn when it was created nearly a decade ago, is to be removed this summer, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission decided this week.
However, the decision to restore Leinster Lawn was not easily made, according to sources, and a number of members of the commission opposed the motion proposed by Fianna Fáil TD Michael Mulcahy.
Leinster House has 293 parking spaces which are used by members of the Oireachtas, some Oireachtas officials and some journalists. It will have 225 once the work is completed.
The Office of Public Works is prepared to offer 29 replacement spaces at other government institutions, but a spokesman last night said: “We will not be buying new stock.”
Minister of State at the OPW Martin Mansergh urged the members of the commission – which is responsible for running Leinster House – to agree to the change, which is unpopular with many in the buildings.
Leinster House, he said, could not seek to retain a development that should have disappeared years ago as part of the planning conditions that were given when a major extension called LH2000 was built.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey wrote a strongly worded letter to the commission, supporting the removal of the parking places and arguing that politicians had to give a lead on public transport.
The restoration of the lawn will be done by the OPW at a cost of approximately €200,000 – a far cry from the €500,000 figure that was pencilled in for the work in earlier plans.
That earlier figure was based on the assumed use of contractors to do the job. Using OPW staff will be more economical, Mr Mansergh told the commission.
Leinster Lawn, which faces Merrion Square in front of the Houses of the Oireachtas, was replaced by a car park in July 1998 as a temporary measure during the construction of LH200.
The planning permission for the work at the time required the lawn be reinstated after the building work was done, but this did not happen because the OPW deferred the work on the grounds that an underground car park was to be built.
The decision on Wednesday means that the car park, which would have cost €25 million and would have been open to the public, has now been deferred indefinitely because of the cutbacks.
© The Irish Times
You can tell it was written by a political correspondent!
So we’re none the wiser as to how these spaces are going to be replaced. Where are 225 spaces going to be ‘once the work is complete’? By my estimation, the Kildare Street courtyard/garage forecourt has 70-80 spaces. Accounting for the 29 spaces being offered elsewhere, what of the 120-odd shortfall?
The current arrangement on Leinster Lawn comprises approximately 70 spaces between the railings and the Cenotaph, and a further 50 or so on each side flanking the National Gallery and the Natural History Mueseum – totalling 170 spaces on the site of the Duke of Leinster’s pleasure gardens. One can only deduce from the proposed reduction from 293 spaces in the whole complex to 225, that only the central Cenotaph-to-railings section of the Lawn is to be removed along with those at the railings end of the National Gallery flank.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kildare Street frontage was reconfigured to take some of the displaced spaces. A parking reshuffle you might say – true to form, an image exercise which achieves nothing.
Graham theyre only removing the temporary ones between the obelisk and the railings put in a decade ago. I don’t believe there ever was a proposal to remove all the spaces.
@Paul Clerkin wrote:
Graham theyre only removing the temporary ones between the obelisk and the railings put in a decade ago. I don’t believe there ever was a proposal to remove all the spaces.
That might be so, but it’s a missed opportunity to lift the bar – imagine a more integrated relationship between Leinster Lawn park with Merrion Square? Why not a corridor connecting the Natural and National museums, providing linkage amongst the 4 cultural institutions?
That’s the problem with this area; incremental proposals or impositions and no overall plan The lawn by itself, the mooted natural museum extension, and the Unknown tomb of the Soldier recently erected within the park railings – seemingly no coordination despite all state controlled.
A little bit of imagination in handling this quarter could pay real dividends.
Fine Gael opposes restoring lawn as a waste of money despite agreeing to it earlier this year.
@Irish Independent wrote:
Anger over ‘waste’ of €230,000 to restore Dail lawn
By Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
Tuesday July 21 2009
THE plan to restore the Dail car park to its former glory as ‘Leinster Lawn’ has been condemned as an “indefensible waste of public money”.The greening project, which is due to take place over the summer, will see the car park at the rear of Leinster House dug up at a cost of €230,000. It will also cost the taxpayer an undisclosed amount to hire extra car parking spaces in other city centre locations.
Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter said the work was “lunacy” at a time of unprecedented national economic crisis. “This is not the time for taxpayer’s money to be allowed to walk out the gates of Leinster House. A stop must be put to this midsummer madness,” he said.
The lawn was turned into a temporary 68-space car park in 1999 while re-development work took place on the new Millennium wing of Leinster House. Under planning permission conditions, it had to be restored after 10 years.
Shocked
Mr Shatter called on Environment Minister John Gormley to support his call for the cancellation of the project and secure a retention order to comply with planning permission.
A spokesman for Mr Gormley said the decision to restore Leinster Lawn was made by the all-party Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which includes three Fine Gael members.
“He is shocked that a TD of such long standing has such a basic lack of knowledge of how decisions are made in his own name and with his own party’s support,” he said.
Mr Gormley is a supporter of the move because he believes the people of Dublin would prefer a lawn to “an ugly car park”.
“He believes it is long overdue and it is in breach of planning at the moment,” his spokesman said.
The Office of Public Works will hire 29 extra car park spaces in other city centre locations, bringing the total number of spaces available to 254 for TDs, Senators and other staff working in Leinster House.
The Oireachtas Commission made its decision to restore the Leinster Lawn at a meeting earlier this year.
One of its members, Fine Gael Tipperary South TD Tom Hayes, said the commission had no option but to restore the lawn. “We have to abide by the rules and regulations. The Houses of the Oireachtas couldn’t be seen to break the planning regulations when ordinary people have to do it,” he said.
– Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
Gas, this changed world we live in. It used to have such positive connotations, the phrase “restored to its former glory”. Now it seems its a dirty word.
The economic crisis was largely brought on by selfishness and crass individualism – the kind of attitude where everything is reduced to functionality and its monetary value. Is there not a pittance in the public purse for the restoration of a symbolically important space in front of the national parliament? Even in the case of a global financial cataclysm, this is the one building in Ireland that demands some care and attention. Its significance would be to remind us that respect for the national community and for the quality of life of ordinary citizens is more important than creating the conditions whereby individuals can make vast piles of cash, and it would thus set a good example for how the mandarins ought to conduct themselves in the future.
But no. Apparently, we should let the politicians keep the perk of a fancy parking space while the national parliament remains as shabby as those who inhabit it.
Hear! hear! As the parliamentarians say… If you neglect routine maintenance and necessary public works in a recession, you build up endless (and expensive) problems for the future, cf. potholes.
@Frank Taylor wrote:
Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter said the work was “lunacy” at a time of unprecedented national economic crisis. “This is not the time for taxpayer’s money to be allowed to walk out the gates of Leinster House. A stop must be put to this midsummer madness,” he said.
Great argument Alan. What the government should be doing is keeping all of our money stuffed in the mattresses in Leinster House. And sure while we’re at it, the OPW crowd can sit there twiddling their thumbs until Celtic Tiger 2.0 roars into our lives.
So works are well underway at Leinster House. A deceptively large hoarding in the Kildare Street forecourt conceals relatively minor works to the entrance podium – designed by Raymond McGrath in 1948, with its rather odd maritime-like copper mushroom lamps – enabling universal access. The wheelchair ramp to the front of Leinster House is also being modified.
Around on Merrion Square the €250,000 lawn is coming along nicely. It’d want to be.
Rather crude detailing presents itself to the passerby, but what more can one expect in these times.
The rare breeds of the hallowed grounds of the national parliament complex appear bemused.
Albert stoical as ever.
An impressive scaffold has also been erected against the garden front of Leinster House, apparently enabling the central attic window to be used as a rubbish chute.
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