National Irish Bank, Wilton Terrace

really? no major loss unlike Pelican House across the canal

so what’s going there?

The crew are from Cramptons so it should be O.K. me hopes!!

A terribly poor piece of architecture well done Tinnelly

Here you go:

http://www.dublincity.ie/planning/swiftknowledge/articleDetail.php?hk=401ffdace1b2d

Not much there, I’m afraid.

i haven’t been in this area in years so the last time i was here the headquarters stood proud. what’s here now? the link above is no longer working… mind you, it has been a while.

Ask and you shall receive:

It looks great.

Such an improvement on the nasty cheapo 70s block that was there before.

Cool crisp and clean lines, with the tinted glass envelope alluding to the placidity of the canal in front, and welcoming open skies above.

“O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.”

From Patrick Kavanaghs ‘Canal Bank Walk’

Anybody else see the One Warrington Place, just down the way – and again a vast improvement…

While the Celtic Tiger may not have delivered massive Gerkin-style icons, here as with the Harcourt Building, the city has benefited from some good quality decent commercial buildings 🙂

@hutton wrote:

It looks great.

Such an improvement on the nasty cheapo 70s block that was there before.

Cool crisp and clean lines, with the tinted glass envelope alluding to the placidity of the canal in front, and welcoming open skies above.

“O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.”

From Patrick Kavanaghs ‘Canal Bank Walk’

Anybody else see the One Warrington Place, just down the way – and again a vast improvement…

While the Celtic Tiger may not have delivered massive Gerkin-style icons, here as with the Harcourt Building, the city has benefited from some good quality decent commercial buildings 🙂

Nice quote work- Have you anything from ‘The Hard Life’ to eulogise the newbie on Warrington Place by any chance?

@tommyt wrote:

Nice quote work- Have you anything from ‘The Hard Life’ to eulogise the newbie on Warrington Place by any chance?

You never know tommyt, you never know… 😉

It’s the horizontal sibling of the new No. 75 St. Stephen’s Green.

I couldn’t make out why the Wilton Terrace building stood out so much in the context of recent developments in the city, until it clicked. It just fits. Shock! No attempt at gratuitous stacking in of additional floorplates, full respect for the grain of its context, and a crisp acknowledgement of the surrounding building line. Basic principles that have been cleanly and efficiently adhered to. Refreshing.

Now whether planar glazing is a lazy excuse of a ‘building’ is another debate entirely – and one I don’t particularly subscribe to – but within its idiom it is an elegant example of its type.

How is this any better than the brick office block pictured?
I suggest its of lower quality.

Sorry my first post has to be so negative.

Fair question, mp. And, eh, don’t worry about the negativity. 😉

I think it’s an okay building. I like it for the reasons GrahamH suggests- respectful of scale, etc. Solid if unremarkable.

I do miss the old railings that fronted the previous building, which presumably dated from an earlier incarnation (19th century?), and wonder why they couldn’t have been kept- this tabula rasa approach to redevelopment has never convinced me, as if a set of railings might be the undoing of a project.

Also, this building is another example of a replacement building that seems to require total site coverage. Generally I’d favour bringing such buildings to the edge of the street, but filling out the site right to the edge on all sides results in a structure that looms somewhat over adjoining sites/properties, and looks like it’s on steroids. The previous incumbent may have been a bit too reticent, but this isn’t the solution to that problem.

Surely there’s a third way?

[/Tony Blair]

I’d agree with that, the earlier building was a lot more responsive to its context.
it was built more cheaply maybe, than the terraces around it.
But it still maintained a some-what similar scale and rhythm.
The new block on the other hand is just that, a blank mass of rather horrible greenish glass with pretty bad detailing everywhere.
Offering nothing to the street or the city.

The rear of that building on stephens green is appalling too, it looks like industrial units on the naas road somewhere. Pretty irresponsible of the planners and the architects(?) considering its position

Not to derail too far, but I’m pretty sure the building on SSG looks like that because it’s awaiting the redevelopment of the adjoining Hainault House and Canada House on the corner of Earlsfort Terrace. When built, both of those buildings will presumably have footprints not dissimilar to the old Dept of Justice one, and will likely abut its side walls to the rear.

Is all of the rear of the building going to be changed? Id include the glazed part at the rear in what i was talking about.