New Streets of Dublin
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i just had a look at their website. if its anything like the stuff they have on there my comments will aply to it too. i realised that someone would take me up wrong from my last post. i have no problem with brick whatsoever. it is a functional, manageble and often beautiful material (in the hands of a proper architect). what i do have a problem with is the “mindless aplication” of this material onto any and every new building, simply forming a mask to a standard floor plate because the architect (if there is one involved) cant be arsed to deal with the building in any intelligent way. the people who design these buildings are, to me, not architects. they have fallen into the role of facillitator through laziness and apathy.
im not talking about throughing a ghery up on every corner (i hate his work) Temple bar , as i sighted, is a landscape of subtle variations and interesting modern buildings, and is vibrant as a result. what i am trying to propose is that we create builings that interact with and give to the street instead of hiding behind an anonymous wall of thoughtless repitition.What?, are you talking about the dozen or so group 91 buildings in temple bar, coz the rest of it is a disaster. The treatment of the historic buildings and overall character of the area was neanderthal, and this for me negates its chance of being a “landscape of subtle variations”. I’m talking about crudely detailed sash windows, cement ‘snail pointing’ to brick facades, facade retention, badly relaid stone setts and general massive loss of former light industrial and artist studio charachter, which made it interesting in the first place.
It’s only vibrant because of the excess of pubs.
The modern buildings may be interesting to people like “us”, and group 91 and their peers. Architects who design uncompromising modern buildings would like to think that the public secretly or unconciously like their buildings, but they don’t. The public want plastic georgian windows and flower baskets.
Originally posted by Devin
The public want plastic georgian windows and flower baskets.what are you talking about?
Curved St in Temple Bar is an outstanding example of developing a new street from nothing.
Lord Edward St as a new St in 1905 also created a significant improvement in both architectural terms and to road users.
It occurs to me that ‘New Streets’ and pedestrian ways such as ‘Cows Lane’ have worked well. While the ‘New roads’ such as Clanbrasil St, The Coombe Bypass and Charlotte way (the one between The Bleedin Horse and The Pod’) have been a disaster from a visual perspective.
Any Thoughts?
I haven’t thought about making the distinction between new streets and new roads but I suppose when thinking about it, Dublin City Council just make more of an effort for new ‘streets’ just because they can be slightly more central. [Though obviously Charlotte Way is too central to be as bad as it is at the same time].
Its been 4 years since I posted this. I am most interested in the Cork St. Relief Road and also I guess the related Newmarket area beside it. I note this from the ‘Dutch Billy’ thread:
If McCullough Mulvin have their way Newmarket will look quite different in the future (go to ‘view all projects’ and ‘masterplanning’): http://www.mcculloughmulvin.com/pages/moviepg.html
I guess there is no central plan for this street – though the Liberties area here is undergoing a lot of change with the site on other side of the national school on the corner of the Coombe and Cork St. Relief Road recently cleared (I refuse to name this street by its official St Lukes Avenue until such a time that this is actually an avenue – living in Madrid, there are not too many avenues fronted by burnt out churches, derelict sites, blank walls dividing the street off from other local housing streets etc.).
So, is there a plan? I guess not. There should be! Its with great disappointment that I see one storey structures going up at the Coombe end of this street – I guess an extension for the school. Craziness! Also, this new developed excludes the very lower corner of the relief road – where there remains just the corner wall (with fine corner stones) of the previous building with fireplace still intact. What is happening here?
@Zap wrote:
Its been 4 years since I posted this. I am most interested in the Cork St. Relief Road and also I guess the related Newmarket area beside it. I note this from the ‘Dutch Billy’ thread:
If McCullough Mulvin have their way Newmarket will look quite different in the future (go to ‘view all projects’ and ‘masterplanning’): http://www.mcculloughmulvin.com/pages/moviepg.html
I guess there is no central plan for this street – though the Liberties area here is undergoing a lot of change with the site on other side of the national school on the corner of the Coombe and Cork St. Relief Road recently cleared (I refuse to name this street by its official St Lukes Avenue until such a time that this is actually an avenue – living in Madrid, there are not too many avenues fronted by burnt out churches, derelict sites, blank walls dividing the street off from other local housing streets etc.).
So, is there a plan? I guess not. There should be! Its with great disappointment that I see one storey structures going up at the Coombe end of this street – I guess an extension for the school. Craziness! Also, this new developed excludes the very lower corner of the relief road – where there remains just the corner wall (with fine corner stones) of the previous building with fireplace still intact. What is happening here?
I go by Cork Street most days I’ll try and post up a few photographs in the next day or two. There’s a new residential scheme by O’D +T under way just through the Ardee Street junction that could be interesting, although it doesn’t appear to match very well the billboard poster, from what I can see.
I have some stuff on Townsend Street that may reflect a point you were making, some years ago, about developments jostling for attention, rather than settling down beside each other in an orderly fashion.
Townsend Street is a old street, but it has been made-over to such an extent that it might be worth including it here.
Looking west towards the junction with College St. / D’olier St. with the new IT building on the right and the new Fire Station on the left, together with assorted apartment blocks. Probably nothing special here, but decent urban scale throughout!
The other end of Townsend St. looking east from just under the railway bridge.The scale here is slightly lower but is still appropriate, in my opinion, with respect of the width of the street. There is an emerging, almost civic, respectfulness towards the street and almost a harmony between the two office developments on the left (the back of the older Georges Quay development in the foreground, and the new ‘Georges Court’ development by KMD in the distance). The context on the opposite side of the street, further down, is the fine 1930s Markievicz Flats scheme.
Into this emerging harmony, on the corner site occupied by the pub, is now proposed a ‘Landmark headquarters office building’ of 4 – 10 storeys (reg. no. 1175/08)
Quite why the junction of Townsend Street and Moss Street deserves a landmark corner building is not clear, but I would suggest that the swirling glass creation, depicted in the model, is not going to contribute much to the emerging harmony in the urban streetscale.I certainly hope not. Its a fantastic 19th century vernacular building, perfectly functioning and a great corner soldier.
I love seeing its ‘open at 7am’ sign whenever I am on the DART. This would be a disaster. Why can’t they pick on all the derelict sites and leave this alone?
Or at the very least encase it in a glass box and stack 12 storeys on top of it, thus solving everyone’s problems :rolleyes:
@Zap wrote:
I certainly hope not. Its a fantastic 19th century vernacular building, perfectly functioning and a great corner soldier.
I love seeing its ‘open at 7am’ sign whenever I am on the DART. This would be a disaster. Why can’t they pick on all the derelict sites and leave this alone?
Here Here. I always appreciated the men who would be up and dressed and already at the bar while I was resting my head agaisnt the window (of the Dart) rubbing the sleep from my eyes :rolleyes:
A fine inner city institution.
@Zap wrote:
I guess there is no central plan for this street – though the Liberties area here is undergoing a lot of change with the site on other side of the national school on the corner of the Coombe and Cork St. Relief Road recently cleared (I refuse to name this street by its official St Lukes Avenue until such a time that this is actually an avenue – living in Madrid, there are not too many avenues fronted by burnt out churches, derelict sites, blank walls dividing the street off from other local housing streets etc.).
So, is there a plan? I guess not. There should be! Its with great disappointment that I see one storey structures going up at the Coombe end of this street – I guess an extension for the school. Craziness! Also, this new developed excludes the very lower corner of the relief road – where there remains just the corner wall (with fine corner stones) of the previous building with fireplace still intact. What is happening here?
I don’t understand what they were at with that school, it can’t be what they had in mind.
As an ‘Avenue’, or even as a street, it has a long way to go.O’D+T are doing a housing scheme near the Ardee Street end of the street that joins up with the yellow brick / green copper curved range completed a couple of years ago.
Further west on widened Cork Street itself towards the Dolphin’s barn end, the Reubens Street scheme, refered to earlier, comes into view.
I think it would be fair to say that the Reuben Street scheme has it’s good angles and it’s not so good angles. That’s a particular characteristic of the slab block high rise, but It certainly raises the bar, and it’s infinitely better than the shapeless mess on the opposite corner. It was also particularly brave of them not to resort to ‘Dolphin’s Barn’ brick.Superior to Cino Zucchi! that might be going a bit far.
@notjim wrote:
Neds is going? How will people drink in the early morning?
Just a quick update on ‘Neds’ for anyone who gets a bit gittery around 7 in the morning.
The Planning application was withdrawn, apparantly four weeks ago, before we even noticed it was in! I only came across it because nobody had bothered to retrieve the scale model from the lobby of the planning office.
For the record, the full horrow of this abandoned development is still available to view at the planning counter. I recomment a viewing of the submitted photo-montage of the proposed development from the opposite corner of Townsend Street, in full colour, for anyone with a passing interest in the growing trend for ‘Iconic’ or ‘landmark’ blocks on random corner sites across the city. In view of the fact that the application was withdrawn, it probably wouldn’t be fair to post it up here.
Again, for the record, there was only one objection to this development, submitted by a local resident, and it was a model of controlled fury.
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