libeskind / Manuel Aires Mateus on the docks
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@notjim wrote:
I thought that was never built?
Hence the fact that I’ve yet to see it in the flesh! (Sorry. :o)
That Manuel Aires Mateus hotel when first proposed was always described in terms of it being “geological” as if hewn from a massive piece of rock – the renders suggest as much. So when I saw it flying up and saw the white panels I assumed it was some Kingspan isulation panels or something similar.
Imagine my surprise last week when I saw the finished product was just that! The whole “hewn from rock” design looks ridiculous when the foyer now looks like a smooth plastic cave. Hewn from formica!
Pile of shite if this is the finished job – why not have polished granite and be done with it, major disapointment/cop out.
[For what it’s worth, I think the present manifestation of the scheme, as illustrated in the published renders, is a giftless shambles, with bits of ‘Libeskind’ mixed in with bits of the Bejing bird cage. My guess is that, when it’s finished and it joins the chequer board hotel (which, in no way, looks like it was ‘carved out of a single block’ of anything, except maybe a crate of mono-tone Battenburg cake) and the slanty red poles on the slanty red carpet, it will be an eloquent statement of exactly how directionless civic architecture has become in the first decade of the 21st century, but I could be completely wrong.[/QUOTE]
I know we can’t go on agreeing like this, but you have put the ‘case against’ very elegantly here. Old cynical me wondered what ‘carved out of a single block’ had to do with a commercial hotel, but I guess that’s just Johnglas…
The danger with this whole civic space now is that it looks like it is being reduced almost to the level of an architectural freak show: no coherence, no dominant design ethos, neither formal open space nor particularly useable ‘play area’, the potential of its relationship to the canal basin wasted. Of the buildings, the office block is decent and well mannered, the hotel is a joke and the DL is… well, what is it? Perhaps you can stand in the middle of it and go ‘Wow!’, but if you can’t, what was the point?
@d_d_dallas wrote:
That Manuel Aires Mateus hotel when first proposed was always described in terms of it being “geological” as if hewn from a massive piece of rock – the renders suggest as much. So when I saw it flying up and saw the white panels I assumed it was some Kingspan isulation panels or something similar.
Imagine my surprise last week when I saw the finished product was just that! The whole “hewn from rock” design looks ridiculous when the foyer now looks like a smooth plastic cave. Hewn from formica!
That’s the point exactly, although, I don’t know if I’d even go as far as saying that it has slipped since the original renders. I think it’s probably being slipping since it was first sketched on the back of an envelope. These are the kind of ideas that hit you like a lightning bolt, usually at 3 in the morning and often with drink taken, but you try and translate them into an actual building, especially that most commercial and superficial of building types, the designer hotel, it just can’t be done. In fairness to them, it’s almost surprising that they even did this well.
I’m not sure that 1m deep window reveals would have saved this building, or that the concept has been dragged down, because the facade looks veneer_eal. I’m inclined to think that the concept was daft in the first place, and should never have gotten beyond napkin sketch.
From what I saw of the construction, there was a mess of steel frames internally presumably corresponding to the room modules. Hotel room specifications change every twenty years or so, and this one doesn’t look like it has a shread of flexibility in it to accommodate a re-fit, if and when a re-fit is called for.
If this building gets hailed as a triumph, the last word in hotel design, we may have to do a serious bit of back-pedaling, or a quick name change.
Who did that sloping green hotel shocker in Glasgow a few years ago? johnglas. Has that bedded in now, or does it still stick out like a sore thumb?
The original design was meant to echo the Burren landscape and I think if it had been built as drawn in the original design (as posted by JoePublic) it would have looked interesting. Unfortunately looks pretty pathetic from the photos above though..
gunter: I’m not sure who did the Radisson on Argyle St, but I’ll find out. Didn’t the RIAI give it an award? I couldn’t believe it myself and had a bit of an argument (not like me) with a good friend over it.
I still think it looks tacky (and tacked-on) and hasn’t worn well, although it has now become part of the streetscape (in an area that is ‘regenerating’ but is still a bit of a ‘twilight zone’) – I’ll see if I can get some pics.I think this square will age badly. A shame really, because the three most prominent elements of it (the hotel, the theatre and the squares landscaping) could work really well as individual projects but here they are like the Irish rugby team – a load of individually good bits that dont work very well when brought together.
It reminds me of an argos christmas tree – a pile of glittery bling.
I can see the liebeskind theatre being botched aswell. The facade of the holel looks like its made of plastic from the photos.
@TLM wrote:
The original design was meant to echo the Burren landscape and I think if it had been built as drawn in the original design (as posted by JoePublic) it would have looked interesting. Unfortunately looks pretty pathetic from the photos above though..
TLM:
‘meant to echo the Burren landscape’? I’m not having that!
The last time I was in the Burren, the words ‘chequerboard block’ never came into my head. The echos of the Burren that come immediatly to mind are ‘wild’, ‘rugged’, undulating’, ‘layered’, this building is a ‘block’. They couldn’t have made it anymore block like if they had built it out of Lego.
I do recall clearly the ‘hewn out of a single something’ comment, which I filed away in the back of the head with a post-it note (can’t wait to see this) on it, but I don’t recall any ‘echos of the Burren’ comment. Surely that would be an abuse of language!
Joe Public’s pic.On the issue of the top storey: I don’t think we need worry too much, there’s no way they’re not going to come along now and clamp on some ‘three dimensional’ version of the facing panels here, you know, to retain the integrity.
“excavated from a seven storey rock”.
@Rory W wrote:
God that close up looks worse – glorifed travel-lodge architecture
:Dbest description yet..it really does look like a TravelLodge. I’ve only been down here a couple of times (and in fairness not very recently)but the whole thing does look very cheap. Those red poles and the green lighting are tacky central imo..Even the “red carpet” looks cheap
I know, I know, he’s “trendy”, but I really like David Adjaye. I just like the use of simple materials on simple projects. I’m not claiming that it’s the second coming.
And at least on this the large blocks look and feel – well – “massive”. So that they might require some “hewing”, and not just picking up….
Am I the only person here who likes it?
I haven’t seen it in person, but based on the photos, it looks quite cool.I’m going to remain competely neutral until it’s finished. I do agree though, that they have changed the look from what was being proposed in the renders.
Maybe the Chinese are buying up a lot of hewn rock for their Tiger economy?
Since ctesiphone gamely volunteered to be stuck indoors on this lovely day covering the high-rise/density conference, I took a stroll down the docks at lunch time to get a look at the hotel. I know we’re supposed to keep an open mind on these things until they’re finished, or is it until they’re all weathered in and patinated, but I can’t hold off, this block offends me on so many levels.
I’ll agree the panels aren’t actually formica, (they do appear to be stone, presumably Portuguese limestone), but they’re put together like formica. Where the ground floor is knawed away and curved sections are required, two flat planes are used with a cut line in between. The amount of structural steel framing that has gone into producing this (to me) dubious concept, is breathtaking, but currently, all this lovely frame work is in the process of being covered up and will never again be seen. There are steel frames in here that wouldn’t look out of place on the Forth Bridge, but they’re being encased in a finish that has the qualities of styrofoam.
This hotel has a perfect location, in away from traffic noise, facing a new theatrical square, over-looking the Grand Canal Dock, but it doesn’t look like you can open a window. There could be performance art going on outside, or somebody drowning 10m away and you’re in your hotel room hermetically sealed.
It is, however, incredibly eye-catching, which is also very annoying.
Dreadful – I can’t get over how disappointing this is. Aside from the upper storeys having 80s travelodge architecture the ground floor looks like it has bits of mfi kitchen units glued to it. Instead of looking like its hewn from stone with a dramatic entrance floor this looks like it was hewn from lego. I know I should wait and see how it turns out and the stone weathers, but I think I’d sooner stay in the office block with the couloured lights than this crud
@RoryW wrote:
the ground floor looks like it has bits of mfi kitchen units glued to it.
Aren’t you being a little too complementary Rory 😉
theres an obvious lack of depth with the fenestration, the renders emphasied this depth a lot more…..
disappointing
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