New Dublin airport control tower by STW

That thing looks like an oversized olympic torch form the 80’s.

Truly awful.

here it is by the way… meh, it’s an airport control tower. What do you want? Does anyone have any links to more attractive airport control towers? any architectural gems around the world’s airports.

The argument re height is actually quite incredulous really. I mean it’s in the middle of a massive bloody airport miles from any houses etc. with as close to zero impact on anyone. I can’t see the ESB towers from Ringsend village or Sandymount village at street level. So how in the name of all that is holy will anyone be able to see this from O Connell Street. But jaysus some might be able to see it from north facing upper floors!!!! Dear God think of the children…..

and here is STW’s previous attempt at a control tower in ireland, the new cork airport control tower

i think it is tall enough to see all the airfield!

St Anne’s Tower competition entry by these guys.

http://www.hhmck.com/

Its not an airport control tower, but as far as phallic objects go, it’s quiet attractive….

They can look good. The Stansted one looks good I think – the green glass with the grey concrete.

I do hope they leave the little one standing as a kind of ironic abstraction of the big Mary little Mary shrines you find in villages down the country. Is their relative position enough to have them represent big Mary little Mary or would other decoration be required? Certainly no other decoration is required for this building, along with its context, to express the idea “airport control tower”, which makes is kind of perfect to my thinking.

I know little Mary isn’t really Mary but I can’t remember who she is since I don’t dig with that foot.

Seriously now lads. Big tall things look like dicks. “Hwhehehwhwh”. The obsession with making “phallic” references is unreal. Maybe once or twice, but its boring now, even if a more polite word for cock is used.

:confused:

Alright, alright, so it’s not that tall. I may have exaggerated to express my point. I respectfully withdraw those arguments, even if little respect was shown towards me for expressing my opinion.

I stick by my original opinions on the bland and uninspiring nature of the structure though.
I can’t understand the argument that it’s simply a ‘functionalist’ building and it shouldn’t matter how it’s designed because of this.

I mean isn’t every building by its very essence functionalist?
A canopy for a Paris Metro station entrance, that’s a pretty functionalist brief right?
Put-a-cover-over-the-steps-to-the-underground.
But they’re beautiful, aren’t they? They didn’t have to be, but someone decided they could be.

Everything that we build as human beings has the potential to be unique and beautiful, I feel that to deny this potential is to deny our very humanity.

@Global Citizen wrote:

So whats the point in building anything imaginative ?
Every building has its “job”.
A bland design should not have anything to do with the function of any structure.
Especially one of this scale.

Granted, I don’t care what goes on inside the place as long as the plane I’m in doesn’t come a sudden end. But I and millions of others every year will be subjected to the sight of it. Surely something more attractive than an oversized iron curtain watchtower is preferable.

And given its location at the busiest point of entry (and departure) on this island, I believe there is an opportunity for a new control tower to give visitors a positive first impression upon arrival. And indeed, a positive last glance of Irish architecture on departure.

IMO the proposed building does neither.

I agree with you totaly its a very unattractive piece of architecture. And maybe i should have explained myself better, i didnt mean that all buildings should be built thinking of functionality and that the look of the building didnt matter i just meant it in this particular case, it being a watchtower an all. Maybe its just what iv come to expect in Ireland, and im not big on the whole “only in Ireland” cliche but that might just be it. Me expectations seem to be slipping every year.