Loop Line Bridge – Why can’t they just do this???

i don’t know, i guess if the advertising was removed it would be a whole lot better ( + a makeover ) and i know that many people that write to these forums think the same, but in the long run, i think that the bridge will have to be removed or drastically re-modelled cause whatever way you look at it….it is still blocking one of the best vistas in Dublin…the options are fairly limited, maybe some kind of suspension bridge (fairly spectacular, i’m thinking)…or we go underground; any suggestions???….if you were in charge what would you do??? i guess that’s addressed to everyone !!!

[This message has been edited by Peter FitzPatrick (edited 08 February 2002).]

Why not get our very good friend Dr Calatrava to remodel it ….it could be a lovely feature for the city , especially if it was all lit up at night

oh No!
not another calatrava bridge
enough!-give someone else a chance
every capital in europe probably has one but we will have three!!

Almost all the railway bridges have advertizing on them and lots of them would be
very nice without. Remember how the Westland Row bridge looked when it was first painted. Some of the bridges over Amiens Street,
North Strand have great detailing, almost completely covered by adverts. The bridge over Ballybough is the same.

As for the bridge blocking our view of the Customs House, well, any bridge there will do that, the one that is there is a good bridge, a piece of heritage from the late Industrial age, dramatic, and expensively build at the time. A modern bridge might be more in tune with modern fashion, but, in the fullness of time it would be no better. I am all for new bridges and can’t wait for the Calatrave bridge, but we should also learn to respect the one we have.

Remember, as Shane O’Toole pointed out, there was discussion of getting rid of the Ha’penny Bridge at the Start of the C20.

I wonder how many thousands CIE get from those advertisments?

I believe that the DDDA have plan to remove the advertising and ‘reinvent’ the bridge as a gateway to the city/docks (depending on which way you are travelling I suppose) This would probably involve restoration, painting and nighttime lighting….and a big sign sponsored by Guinness telling you how fab Dublin is as long as you have has 10 pints…
Perhaps a better option would be to send the train line underground from the Tolka to Grand Canal Dock and do away with the need for this bridge. The resulting land that would be freed up could be sold off to compensate against the costs. Connolly Station would remian but become an underground with links for DART, Metro (shouldn’t these just be the same service?) and mainline services. No need for an above ground Tara St and the removal or redesignation of Pearse St. Think of all those awkward shaped buildings on Talbot St and Tara St that could benefit.

The ads should be obliterated immediately,
with a lick of paint and a few bulbs the
bridge would be a visual asset. I think it
gives the city more of a metropolis feel with
the trains rumbling over head.

The idea of sending the line underground will
never happen. Just so we can Survey the
Custom House and down river from up river.
Why should the city be dressed so
revealingly?

But on the subject of ads generally, there’s
no harm in them, ask anyone who was in East
Berlin before the wall came down, before the
ads the place was very dull altogether.
Possibly there could be more decorative ad
structures such as the tube like things that
are dotted around many cities in Europe.

The replacement structure designed by Kavanagh Mansfield in 1995 doesn’t really open up the views of the custom house as intended – i.e. replacing the admittedly ugly bridge with a slimmer model won’t make a whit of a difference.

Why not remodel the bridge…it could be a lovely feature for the city especially when it could all lit up at night.

The impression from this forum is one determined by sight or vision. This is an outmoded model for sensing the image of the city. Surely architects can think beyond the box of opthalmic centered behaviour.

I agree – but all we are saying is that if there were no loopline bridge and we needed a rail connection across the Liffey – we would (or at least I hope we would) take account of the visual impact it would cause and try to minimise the negative visual impact.
Pointless argument, agreed, because I don’t foresee any major changes to the structure – there are more worthy projects.
However it is vitally important that we constantly appraise the city in a visual sense – not the most important criterion but still important to create a sense of place

Shadow – as a “non architect” I’ve always just assumed that vision/sight (along with the right form for a specific site) was the major criterium in architecture/town planning…could you maybe expand upon that or suggest some further reading on the subject?

Hi Shadow…..But architecture is such a visual thing…it’s all got to do with the visual senses….the initial and most important impression is made to the optic nerves.

However all please don’t put an emphasis on the view of the Custom House ….it is as I always say a shadow of it’s former glorious self….almost all of it destroyed in our troublesome past and only crudely and partiallly restored.

Architecture has visual attributes but does not appeal to one sense. The loss of a haptic understanding of our world is a key concern. By reducing the concerns of a building, or city to that percieved by the sense of sight (in turn translated and rationalised by the brain) is both misleading and removes the potential richness of experience. In reply to the question of a text, book or other area worth exploring one possible source is Bloomer Moore’s “Body Memory Architecture”. 20th century modernism took inspritation from the painting and sculpture movements that emerged in Paris, Milan, Utrecht and Moscow. What architecture would have been possible if the model was the 20th century novel instead? What possibilities? Would the architecture of Hadid, Eisenmann & Tschumi be different, or would they have emerged earlier???? Would our cities have retained the richness of previous generations with the radical and critical interventions of contemporary life? Instead we have had one narrow “perspective” after another, promulgated as a higher ideal….

True…. oh true…… architecture does not appeal to only sense……it appeals to all the senses;…. sight, smell, sound, touch, taste…… smell,sound, touch and taste relating to people, food, atmosphere…..As we all know a city could look wonderful but it could be as dead as a doornail and lack atmosphere. But the look of a place, the very initial impression as I have stated is the most impressionable to a person…..and Dublin is featureless in architectural terms….much in comparison to a provincial British city. Let’s get our capital city, Dublin looking good, distinctive and impressionable,…..we already have the other traits …..the smells of food, vomit and piss…..a good mixture of people….and thank god too…. of all backgrounds and diversities, from the local riff-raff to beleagured and much contented foreign nationals who have made Dublin their home. Intellectualizing can be alien to common folk……..
Modernism was a natural progression of architecture …don’t knock it…..it stripped away the frivolities and decoration getting down to the pure structure and design as like the art and classical music of the times.
A couple of centuries before that the Reformation had somewhat done the same and produced the minimalism of it’s day in the guise of Palladian, etc…….but look what the the Counter-Reformation produced….the Baroque….over the top dramatic theatre….but visually brilliant if not to everybody’s taste.