"Modern" Protected Structures in Dublin

Happened to be in the City Council (without camera unfortuntely) this morning and saw the model for the Bank Of Ireland, Baggot Street proposal.

I’m so disappointed. They obviously just don’t get the whole Miesian thing about proportion and relationship between the various blocks. It looks awful.

I have a lot of sympathy for the bank as these older buildings will need to be updated and adapted to create accommodation which meets the more stringent standards required today but this is so badly done.

Sorry for lack of images – couldn’t find it in the planning search either…

Cheers!! I’m goin blind / senile!

“more is more” eh?
Hard to judge it properly but the extra two floors on the main block look terrible. Wheras I think it might be possible to do a nice job with the infill between the blocks.
But in general it’s a shame that the building is going to be extended.

thats a disgrace, hope it gets thrown out.

now if they built THAT on Wellington Qy…

😉

Numerous objections have flooded in at the last minute. Those from John Meagher and Edward McParland are particularly good. Patrick Scott’s (formerly of M. Scott and Partners) is co-authored by Seamus Heaney, Louis le Brocquy and Sean Scully. Even the president of the RIAI has written on its behalf expressing severe reservations.

It’s empty because it’s summer, tommy :). School’s out in DKIT.

John Meagher’s submission on the BoI is excellent – glowing in his praise of the complex, solidly referenced, and positively mocking in his highlighting of unsubstantiated claims.

Read them all here:

http://www.dublincity.ie/AniteIMWebSearch/Results.aspx

Ah yes – the former entrance to the factory (one of two). As far as I know the factory part is still largely empty, with just the office wing being used at the moment. A major media installation was recently installed though, and at least one course is run from there too. They seem to be converting the complex by degrees.

@goneill wrote:

Yes, architects do have some kind of ethical code, called “The Code of Conduct”. http://www.riai.ie/public/downloads/RIAI-CODE-310106.pdf

Is which not the equivalent of taking a slash….? The proposed design or the objections to it?

The proposed design. How about another shoddy metaphor…is it not like considering some great symphony would be enhanced by the addition of a kazoo quartet or a penny whistle solo?

A lot of people in Irish architectural circles have huge regard for the original Scott, Tallon and Walker. Ronny Tallon, in particular, comes across as a committed professional, dedicated to bringing Miesian modernity and finesse to Ireland. All of that’s a given, but when I look at the B of I in Baggot Street, the phrase that comes to mind is: How did they get away with this?

The B of I is a well executed 1970s provincial version of Mies’s 1950s Seagram Building in New York. It’s not a re-interpretation of Mies, it’s a cut-down copy of Mies. Seagram is three blocks on a plaza, so Baggot Street is three blocks on a plaza. The composition of blocks is different, but the design is modular, so the heights are arbitrary, the number of bays are arbitrary. If you tried this today, you’d be up in the High Court tomorrow.

Mies van der Rohe (d. 1969) was an astonishing architect and an incredible visionary, his dedication to precision, craft and materials shames most of us. I don’t think Mies had the artistic creativity of Corb, but he demonstrated the power of clarity and simplicity, and with his ‘less is more’ mantra, he was the first minimalist (Loos talked the talk, but did he walk the walk?).

Seagram was a commercial commission, but I think the brilliance of Seagram lay in it’s demonstration that minimalist modernism could be classy, it could be posh, it could be expensive looking when all around them there were growing signs that the modern movement (that they had created) was delivering only cheap and crude versions of their vision.

‘Cheap and crude’ is exactly how John Meagher characterised the HKR proposal for additions and alterations to the Baggot St. building and it is the ultimate put down. It is refreshing to finally see some of our grandees dip into the vitriol in responce to a proposal to over-develop a bit of Dublin, it’s just a pity that the occasion isn’t one of the several issues of principle weaving their way through the planning process at the moment, but to come to the defence of one of their own.

I hope the current proposal is thrown out, I agree that it’s a crude intervention, but I don’t hold with the view that the B of I is some kind of masterpiece of composition and I’d be more than happy to just keep the two rectangular blocks and let HKR show us what they can do, from scratch, on the site of the square block. Given the context, it could be a test case of whether the Modern Movement really did deliver a new vision to follow, or whether the best we can hope for is to reproduce a classic from one of the master’s back catalogue.