National Gallery Extension
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I passed the new Clare Street extension of the NGI yesterday. It looks very well, very crisp and clean. It looks best from Clare Street rather than Sth Leinster Street as it allows you to see the layering of the facade.
I think this is going to be a great building.
Yea – it looks great alright – I cant wait to see it when it finishes.
Has anyone any idea when it is opening?
I would say they will do well have it finished this side of Christmas.Actually to answer my own question – I got this from the National Gallery’s website( http://www.nationalgallery.ie ), regarding opening of the extension…
The construction and design of the National Gallery of Ireland’s 4,000 sq m Millennium Wing is now nearing completion. To manage the final critical stages of the project, it will be necessary to close the Gallery to the public for a projected period of two months prior to Christmas, ahead of the opening in January 2002. This period will allow for a re-hang of the collection and an opportunity for the redecoration of the existing galleries.
Declan, it does to me also, but remember until the conservation lobby had their way, the victorian building next door was to be demolished and the facade was to be longer. It was saved to protect the small Georgian ballroom to the rear of the house which i now believe is going to be a small pavilion inside the new gallery space..
I thought this brutalist stuff was long gone out of fashion……Huge minimalist slabs of windowsless concrete. Wait till this gets weathered too it will look just crap.
MG the ‘Victorian’ building which you refer to dates from around 1770 and is almost entirely intact internally, the ballroom is a little later.
Bloody old buildings – always getting in the way. We should knock the lot!!!
[This message has been edited by James (edited 24 September 2001).]
This looks overly obtrusive in the streetscape ……trying to emulate the Guggenheim?….will be on a par with the ESB offices on FitzWilliam Street in years to come on reflection.
Quite a bit of Denys Lasdun, circa 1960, in that. Which is a compliment, if you like Lasdun.
……Does’nt it pick up on the nuances of the original main building……echoes of the rather ugly interpenetrated columns with block……is that the same type of stone used too in the cladding……however I’ll say the interior will be good.
By it’s outward appearance this would be an ideal gallery space dedidicated solely to the cubists.[This message has been edited by GregF (edited 25 September 2001).]
Greg, with galleries you do not want a whole lot of natural light. Direct light isnt great for the paintings.
Really James? I was in the building years ago when it was Maptec and the Drawing Centre was underneath. Upstairs was in poor enough condition even then. What are they going to do with the building now? Administrative offices?
That’s true MG…but I did’nt really mean direct natural sunlight…but rather ‘cheeriness’ as opposed to it’s rather ‘austere’ exterior
[This message has been edited by GregF (edited 25 September 2001).]
I follow ya. I do quite like the austerity of the building myself. Most of the galleries in the current gallery are completely uninteresting spaces so hopefully this new extension will add a focus / people space for the ensemble.
A city needs contrast and Clare Street is reasonably intact (with the exception of the rather bland pastiche Gov Dept building) but South Leinster Street is full of bland uninteresting buildings – think of the two awful blocks before the Georgian building. I think it will act as a full stop to the street just as it runs into Clare Street.
I passed by this builing recently and i thought it looked odd but kind of nice and impressive. Not sure it will look quite so hot if it is allowed to become black with grime.
I hope that the bottom right corner of the facade as seen on the photo above uses a lot of glazing ‘cos i think it would be a nice contrast to the rest of the building. If it were all plainish wall like what can be seen now however, it would look as if a box had been dropped into the terrace which would not look very nice streetwise.[This message has been edited by DARA H (edited 25 September 2001).]
I like the extension – especially as the model proposes it to be; however, it looks like a rather less successful relative of their Museum of Scotland; the scaling and compostion used for an Edinburgh streetscape seems to have just been transferred across to a very differently composed Dublin streetscape.
Arthur Gibney and Partners have been appointed architects for the adjoining ‘retained’ building, No 5 South Leinster Street, which is to be restored under a separate contract.
The reason it doesn’t blend in as well as the museum of Scotland is that the stone is in contrast to the surrounding streetscape (brick) whereas the Edinburgh building uses the same material as the surrounding buildings
exactly what i was thinking.
In design we talk so much about context and respect for surrounding buildings, yet so many of us have to be FLASH. Aparently in design, material isnt part of the nature of a place. Our own building is somehow more important than the rest and therefore aparently deserves to be distinct (i.e. stick out or not fit in ) at least material wise.
Well o.k. maybe the national gallery is a worthwhile exception,
Otherwise, if the inside is goingto be like the model and drawings i’ve seen, it’s going to be a pretty fabulous place.From AJPlus
Construction is about to begin on the £17.5 million extension to the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, designed by Benson & Forsyth. The design, which had to be changed considerably to accommodate a listed building, is in three parallel zones running north to south. The most easterly of these houses the larger portion of the temporary gallery on the upper levels with ancillary accommodation below. The central zone comprises a full-height orientation space plus the bulk of the building’s circulation. In the westerly zone is a full-height conservatory space plus coffee and resturant facilities and additional gallery space above.
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