new design for eyre square

Confused, you should be….

The debacle of Eyre Square has been going on for years. The redesign by Mitchell & Associates, after much debate and planning is about to commence on site (my understanding). This included cutting down of quite a number of trees. The response (on of many is due to the culling of the trees amongst other things). The one we see featured on TV this week is by that designer who brought leprachaun world to Chelsea. Unfortunatley this is going to get a great deal of support because of its “easy on the eye (mind)” approach and probably will dismantle a considerable effort on Mitchell & Associates part to redefine Irish Public space.

Well I must admit, having seen the treatment of public spaces in other countries, I do have a real problem with public spaces in this country often getting overgrown like a jungle held inside of these ‘railings’.

I mean, after a short while you get something like Harold’s Cross park, or Pery Square in Limerick, or even Merrion Square in Dublin. Spaces that are totally forgotten in the city – invisible places.

eyre square is located somewhere like stephens green, it is at the end of galway’s main shopping street with impressive, formal buildings around it. again, the question is, if the railings around stephen’s green were destroyed in a storm, would you want them replaced. i don’t think all open space should be railed, but it does help seperate and contain a park and yes, many of the best parks, in dublin and elsewhere (central park anyone) are railed.

Eyre Square desperately needs something done to it though, and it’s hard to imagine anything being worse than what’s there now. Galway Corporation did a great job of pedestrianising Shop Street, and renovating the area around the Spanish Arch so I’d be willing to trust them. I don’t live in Galway any more so I haven’t seen the proposals though, although I’ve heard they are pedestrianising the side of the Square in front of the Skeff. Not sure if that’s true. They really need to do something with that car-parking area in front of Dunnes/Supermacs, it looks awful.

To my own mind St. Stephen’s Green is a quite interesting study in itself, in a way like Central Park is too. Why? Because if you think about the areas of city directly relating to the four sides of St. Stephen’s Green – they are vastly different. On one side you have Earlsford Terrace, Baggot Street, Ely Place and Lesson Street. On another side you have Harcourt Street, Cuffe Street and another small one with the Surgeon’s college. Then you have the newly paved Street with the Gaiety, Grafton Street and Dawson Street. Leading down to Kildare Street, the Dail, Trinity college. Yet none of these urban areas are in any way, shape or form connected by St. Stephens Green.

Similarly with Trinity college – it totally separates Nassau Street and Leinster Street from Pearse Street, Hawkins Street etc. You have two very strong immovable objects in the centre of Dublin there, and if you include Leinster House, Merrion Square and Dublin Castle on the East to West axis – you suddenly realise the only place for Dublin city centre to expand is a little bit towards South Great George’s Street – which is precisely what it is now currently doing. Notice how little laneways close to Dames Street have got re-vamped – Temple Bar itself was only a series of laneways. Going back further to the west, you have another obstacle in the form of Heuston, Kilmainham, Phoenix Park and a series of By-passes etc.

I just wonder how the Luas thing might eventually change how we move around our city centre, if indeed at all. At the moment the whole south city centre hangs on by its fingernails unfortunately. My own impression, is that cities like Paris had their Hausmann interventions – to massively ventilate those little laneways of Paris. Nowadays you can rely on those massive thoroughfares to bring some kind of meaningful order to the city. Indeed some of those boulevards in Paris behave like long urban linear parks. I think that is what our Georgian Squares should do, but then again that is just my whole crazy notion. But I would not be against a light rail system running straight through the St. Stephens Green park for instance.

I find it strange how no pedestrian route ever occurred between the top of Grafton Street and Lesson Street on the other corner. Surely there is some opportunity to cut straight through there and create a linear open space? A space for all the masses of people marching up and down a dingy hole like Grafton Street to enjoy. Grafton Street is a dingy, disgusting and even sometimes dodgy hole. It feels dangerous and off-putting. I notice that Baggot Street has gotten quite a little Café culture happening now, as opposed to a pub idea. Ranelagh village has turned into quite a café area too. I simply don’t know how that happened overnight, but I am out of touch with Dublin now for a long time. There was a time when Dublin was defined by its public houses. But perhaps shortly it will become known for its coffee districts!

There is something nice about cafes, the idea of casual encounters and watching the world go by. Which public house simply turned their backs on for so long. As you walk towards Baggot Street, you pass a corner of St. Stephen’s Green where a chunk of it became part of the footpath, and a sculpture was built there. That entrance/space or whatever you call it, doesn’t work, isn’t used. WHile the one on Earlford terrace is better somehow.

Dunno.

Brian O’ Hanlon.

never one to shy from away from a challenge EL ARCHITINO has returned from his vacation in the west bank full of vigour and zest.
EL ARCHITINO is acutely aware of the complex issues relating to public spaces that could prove taxing for architects endowed with a lower intelligence quotient than himself.
the issue of eyre square and its need for a relevant design solution has weighed heavy on EL ARCHITINO’s mind for nigh on ten minutes now. some may ask “to rail or not to rail?” that is a pathetic question.
the social and physical landscape of eyre sq is farmiliar to EL ARCHITINO, having glimpsed it whilst lying on his back in his stretched hummer filled to an uncomfotable level with hookers, as it drove along it’s south end en route to EL ARCHITINO’s conemara retreat.

EL ARCHITINOs scheme aknowledges the true place of eyre square. it belongs to the lager lout, and forms an important place in the ritual of these fascinating creatures. the climax of any lager louts adventure in galway is surely a visit to the fast food outlet, supermacs at the top of the square. the proposal seeks to grasp on this oportunity to view put on show the truly mesmorising behaviors of this species at the height of its drunkeness.

a plinth of gloss white viynl leads, like a catwalk from outside supermacs and completely covers the existing footprint of eyers square, culminating in a solitary toilet raised above street level, who’s function is to subvert the notion “that somethings shouldnt be done in public”. this subversion is intended to further liberate the lager lout into attempting even more outrageous acts of antisocialism.

the following morning when the lager lout awakes with a blinding hangover sprawled on the desolate plinth, which is stained with vomit and faeces, his emotions will be heightened by the brilliant reflection from the morning sun shining on the vinyl surface. as he struggles to stumble accross the plinth sheilding his eyes, this will provide the perfect conditions for observing this stage of the lager louts oscillating states of being.

the stark remider of the night before can then be cleaned in redience for the next instalmnet.

section

I think pepe is in love

Once again I am amazed at the ignornace of people who babble on about topics they have no idea about. You talk about restoring Eyre Square to what it once was because this is what the thrust of Landscape Architecture should be in Ireland. This coming from a set of Irish Architects who have no idea how to build contemporary buildings in a historic city. This is hypocrytical and stupid. Landscape Architecture can have a contemporary niche as well, and it can be contextual and revitalizing.

Why would anyone want to put a fence around a public space….especially one that sits in the middle of one of the most vibrant parts of Galway City….because its what was once there????

The new design by Mitchell and Assoc. responds to the activity and dynamics of this area, and allows for mixed uses. It is historic in the sence that it will become a Public Open Space, which is what it really was originally, and not closed in Park as suggested. Of course it has contemporary components and materials….we live in the year 2003….how can it not. And it certainly does not have a Heart Shape in it. If you want to know what you are talking about before you continue to babble on, have a stroll down to St. Stephens Green and have a look at the scale model and drawings that have been sitting in the lobby of the Corporation Building for months.

You are right that many mature trees are being removed from the site. But what you fail to understand is that they are all dying and need to be removed. A very detailed tree survey has been completed by one of the countries top Arborists, and the suggestion was made by him that these trees NEED to be removed. Another thing that people fail to realise is that they will be replaced by MORE trees than are there currently, and that they will be healthier and more appropriate species for that site.

Just like buildings, public spaces have life spans too…and once those days are up things need to change……the architects in this country have no regard for restoring buildings to what they once were, so why should landscapes be any different, especially one like Eyre Square which was not designed by anyone significant or in any particular style to begin with.

yeah, i was the only one who wanted eyre square restored and in the usual way, i amn’t an architect.