North Georgian Dublin

It’s amazing that through the boom very little was done to this area. There should be some serious incentives offered and some radical ideas thrown about. It is a disgrace that all those buildings are allowed to waste away.

Perhaps DCC should commit to taking on large portions and converting them to social housing rather than building any new housing.

@Service charge wrote:

It’s amazing that through the boom very little was done to this area. There should be some serious incentives offered and some radical ideas thrown about. It is a disgrace that all those buildings are allowed to waste away.

Perhaps DCC should commit to taking on large portions and converting them to social housing rather than building any new housing.

Given the collpase of the PPP projects maybe this could work?

Interesting comment article on this kind of thing in the Observer. Talking about Liverpool but similar to what I am saying above:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/22/architecture-heritage-liverpool-hope-street

To say that visiting Turin is like going back to 1910 is to appreciate that the city has not lost its strength of aesthetic identity to postmodern mediocrity. Venerable buildings retain their usage, renovated when necessary, so that the centre is robustly fin-de-siècle and the peeling but lovely arcades and apartments around Piazza dell’Indipendenza are being restored for affordable housing. The Verdi music conservatory looks like the day it opened in 1866.

@aj wrote:

Given the state of the North Georgian core of the city and the fact that owners are allowed to let fine buildings fall into disrepair something needs to be done in order to force the owners hand.

I would agree with that, but I think we need to look beyond the core as well.

With the floated UNESCO World Heritage designation for the ‘Georgian Core’, I get the feeling that there is a subconscious movement afoot to ring-fence Dublin’s Georgian heritage to just the areas in the immediate vicinity of the four squares, possibly to the detriment of conserving 18th century structures outside these protected zones.

Part of the remarkable story of 18th century Dublin was the sheer scale of the city and with the effective loss of the Quays as a representative of the breadth of the Georgian city, together with streets like Blackhall Street and Rutland Street, this part of the story has been considerably eroded.

A case in point would be these houses at 141 – 144 Abbey Street.

I’d like to claim these as ‘Billys’, but for the purposes of this discussion we’ll just call them Georgian.

All are in perilous condition, none are protected structures, yet they are surviving structures from within the ‘core’ of the 18th century city, if now some distance from what would be regarded as ‘the Georgian core’.

The corner buildings have lost their top storey and are held together by steel ties, but, as corner buildings with frontage to both Upper abbey Street and Wolf Tone Street (Stafford St.), they could be particularly interesting inside and very worthy of restoration. Both no. 143 and no. 144 (Ed’s Barbers) have corner fireplaces and look like former Billys, or at least early transitional Georgian houses, and no. 143 (even though the facade must have been rebuilt in the 19th century) has a Billy style full height return.

I’m not sure if the boundaries of the Capel Street ACA will include these houses.

So much for talk of winning the war for Georgian Dublin.

the group at 141-144 Abbey St.. . . . . . rear of no. 142 with it’s Dorset St. type rear chimney . . . . . . rear of no. 143 with it’s ‘Billy’ type return

The three 18th century houses we discussed last year at the corner of Abbey Street and Wolfe Tone Street were cleared away in the last few weeks.

Yes they were in poor condition and two had lost their top storey, but they would still have merited closer study and, if restored, they would have contributed significantly to validating the Jervis Street area as a once important district in the 18th century development of Dublin

the same corner today with only no. 144 left standing

Well at least there is consistency in what is happening – even if it is completely contrary to what is officially uttered. I quote a thread I started in 2007:

@hutton wrote:

Dublin: Corner of Bridgefoot St and Ushers Island; 4 floor Georgian left derelict with billboards on the facade. There last week and for 200 years previously – now a derelict site. Needless to say a Conservation Area, although the building itself was not specifically listed on the RPS. Will there be action by DCC – what odds?

Taken from the thread “Theyre at it again – A Georgian goes on the quays / Endangered Georgian Dublin” – https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=5930

Images of what was cleared, a perfectly good building blighted by unauthorised billboards:

@Sloan wrote:

There is more information on the planning application for Nos. 1 and 2 Usher’s Island (now demolished) on this thread

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4432 starting on 11 Nov 2005 Post No. 11

Needless to say the intended replacement scheme was never built – and a derelict site now sits at a key corner on the quays…

Apart from the above, and the recent un-development on Abbey Street, I also noticed that another corner house formerly at North Circular Road / Russell Street was demolished one weekend in January 2008, apparently on the grounds of safety.

And of course then there was row about 12 Dorset Street back in 2007 / 8 where DCC, fully in the belief that the house was the birthplace of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, waved on an application that sought to demolish that listed Georgian house. Fortunately An Bord P shot down DCC’s consent, and subsequently the developer made a new application to reinstate that building – despite it emerging that it actually didn’t have the connection with Brinsley Sheridan!

Meanwhile late last year, the last remaining building that stood on Hammond Lane at the side of the former match factory site, off Church Street, was also demolished. Georgian in appearance, I am sure its removal eliminates a last nuisance that was in the way of redevelopment – yet as that massive site has remained completely cleared and vacant for 15 years, how likely is it that it will be redeveloped any time soon, particularly now given the lack of demand?

So is there a trend here, and if so, where’s next?

Jez, some of those pics remind me of going into town as a kid…late 1980s! I noticed the townhouses beside AXA were gone when I was using the LUAS last Saturday. After they suffered the contagious disease of “falling masonry” which seems to infect alot of inconvenient buildings in Dublin, it was inevitable that they were going to be demolished.

Gunther, looks like you went to extraordinary lengths and heights to get some of those pics!

C

Phoenix magazine also had an interesting if critical article regarding North Georgian Dublin earlier this year. Apparently DCC’s draft development plan schedules areas as Georgian where little is left – while excluding the areas that are largely intact…

From Phoenix magazine, January 2010:

An Taisce has put in their helpful submission regarding UNESCO accusing the council of having “systemically disregarded the existing national guidelines on protected structures and architectural conservation areas “, and having a “complete absence of controls for management of the public realm of Georgian Dublin”, before advising that “Dublin City Council should be requested to address these issues prior to any consideration for addition of Georgian Dublin to the UNESCO list.”

However there is also little bit of a glimmer of good news; it appears that DCC have received a number of submissions from prominent people calling on Mountjoy Square to be an ACA. Given the draft plan is still in gestation, it would appear DCC have the opportunity to do the right thing…

From The Sunday Times May 23, 2010:

MacEoin said that preserving the square is crucial if Dublin hopes to continue attracting tourists. “A large proportion of tourists cite Georgian Dublin as their pre-eminent reason for visiting the city,” he said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7134091.ece

Of course this is only of benefit if the ACA is actually enforced!

Back to the Abbey Street buildings, its worth pointing out that all the works to demolish were don in the absence of a planning permission. The last permission was deemed withdrawn after the applicant failed to respond to an FI request within the 6 month period.

@StephenC wrote:

Back to the Abbey Street buildings, its worth pointing out that all the works to demolish were don in the absence of a planning permission. The last permission was deemed withdrawn after the applicant failed to respond to an FI request within the 6 month period.

Hmmm – that’s very interesting; might the owner have got DCC’s Dangerous Buildings section to move on it – and if so would that have required PP under the Act? Personally I doubt it as it as it would have been a health and safety “emergency”.

@gunter wrote:

The photo above was of course been the best bit of what appears a farce – a sign left for months that advised people to “please cross to the other side of the road” as it was a “Dangerous Building”…

If DCC’s Dangerous Buildings did acquiesce to the demolition of the above structures, it would be interesting to see their technical reports outlining the need, and also what if any alternatives were suggested by DCC as possible options that might have ensured the survival of said structures.

The plot thickens – what has DCC’s role been?

i give up 🙁

Moi aussi

I have a pic of the abbey street site just after it was demolished 3 months ago. I cant upload it though. Is it because Im a noob? It is a jpeg less than 700pix wide and less than 293.4kb so should fit within the restrictions (?)

I think they have given up on the city centre ..lets just leave it to the junkies they seem to have taken over large areas unopposed by anyone in authority.

That announcement that Dublin was getting a UNESCO ‘City of Literature’ badge, was that on foot of Gormley’s application for World Heritage Site status for Dublin on the basis of our Georgian architecture and our literary heritage. i.e. that we were turned down on the architectural heritage grounds, or was it just a coincidence that the city of literature thing came through now? . . . and how the hell did Edinburgh get a ‘City of Literature’ badge ahead of us? Harry Potter isn’t even set in Edinburgh.

I see someone’s been doing their best to return Henrietta Street to something like Luke Gardiner’s original morbid vision:

A meticulous re-pointing job on no. 13 [the decision to highlight – London-style – the replacement 19th century orange brick window arches slightly reduces the severity] re-captures the blocky brooding menace 1740s Georgian.

I note however that the little bit of cheer provided by the original central rain water pipe [seen here still in place on no. 14] has been banished from the re-pointed facade.

@gunter wrote:

. . . and how the hell did Edinburgh get a ‘City of Literature’ badge ahead of us? Harry Potter isn’t even set in Edinburgh.

I can imagine the opprobrium if somebody made a stupid comment like this about Dublin literature. Among others, Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, and Irvine Welsh are from Edinburgh. Numerous novels are also set in Edinburgh, including Trainspotting and some novels by Scott. Edinburgh has the world’s largest book festival, which was going on for years before Dublin’s. The main train station in Edinburgh is named after a Walter Scott novel, and there’s a huge monument to Scott on Prince’s Street, much bigger than any monument to a writer in Dublin.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

I can imagine the opprobrium if somebody made a stupid comment like this about Dublin literature. Among others, Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, and Irvine Welsh are from Edinburgh. Numerous novels are also set in Edinburgh, including Trainspotting and some novels by Scott. Edinburgh has the world’s largest book festival, which was going on for years before Dublin’s. The main train station in Edinburgh is named after a Walter Scott novel, and there’s a huge monument to Scott on Prince’s Street, much bigger than any monument to a writer in Dublin.

It’s not a wholly ignorant comment. Those writers you mention, whilst great, are not of the intellectual or artistic calibre of Joyce, Beckett, Shaw, Swift, Wilde etc…

In any case, as Melbourne and Iowa have also been recipients of this accolade, I wouldn’t put a great deal of stock in it. 😉

OK, we’re going off on a tangent here and I recognise that archiseek can be a barren place for humour, but Iowa, ‘Unesco City of Literature’, because – wait for it – ‘for eighty years, we’ve been teaching the world to write’.
. . . . . jesus christ.

I note also, from the Iowa City – Unessco City of Literature – web site; ‘Iowa City is often known as the Athens of the mid-west‘, which I hadn’t realized and which probably makes Des Moines the Sparta of the prairies, must check that out. In fairness to Unesco, this dovetails neatly with that other ‘Unesco City of Literature’, Edinburgh, long known as the Athens of the North, however it raises the question; what happened to the Athens of the feckin Aegean? didn’t they have some bearded lads who could write? . . . . even more than eighty years ago :rolleyes:

@kinsella wrote:

It’s not a wholly ignorant comment. Those writers you mention, whilst great, are not of the intellectual or artistic calibre of Joyce, Beckett, Shaw, Swift, Wilde etc…

In any case, as Melbourne and Iowa have also been recipients of this accolade, I wouldn’t put a great deal of stock in it. 😉

Well if the criterion was the number of great writers born in the city, and how great they are, then I think Dublin would be near the top of the list, probably behind London and Paris and other world cities. However, of all the writers you named, only Swift actually lived in Dublin during most of his creative life or made a continuing contribution to the intellectual life there.

Iowa and Melbourne are apparently regional hubs for spreading literature and the virtues of creative writing to the masses, which seems to be an important criterion for city of literature status. Dublin, quite simply, is not, whereas Edinburgh is. I don’t see any huge attempt to teach Dublin or Irish schoolchildren creative writing skills, or indeed a huge budgetary commitment to the development of contemporary literature. Dublin likes to focus on dead white males for tourism purposes, rather than being a particularly vibrant source of modern literature. So maybe Dublin should focus on that if it wants to be the world’s greatest literary city.

Oh, and maybe also not greenlighting the demolition of homes believed to be the birthplaces of major writers in the English language would also be helpful.

@rumpelstiltskin wrote:

I can imagine the opprobrium if somebody made a stupid comment like this about Dublin literature. Among others, Walter Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Muriel Spark, and Irvine Welsh are from Edinburgh. Numerous novels are also set in Edinburgh, including Trainspotting and some novels by Scott.

Not to mention James Hogg, long resident in Edinburgh and famous for “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner”

Hiivaladan: good on you; quite simply the best ‘Scottish’ book ever. Read it and be afraid; be very afraid!

PS Another very great ‘Scottish’ book is ‘The House with the Green Shutters’ by George Douglas; by God, we can be grim Up North.

I never thought I live to see Sinn Fein attempt to do their bit for Georgian Dublin:

. . . but in their timber window reinstatement at 44 Parnell Square, where did they get the idea that the first floor windows were tripartite?

A small number of three-bay Georgian houses incorporated the Kevin-Barry-Hall feature of a pair of larger windows at first floor level, [one on Merrion Sq. North, and another on Merrion Street] which I think has to be interpreted as a throwback to the popularity of this arrangement in the preceding ‘Billy’ phase, but surely it’s inconceivable, from a glazing proportion point of view, that any were tripartite. How are these decisions arived at? or do people just make it up as they go along.

The latter, alas. These went in around this time last year. Haven’t had a chance to send it to DCC Enforcement, along with an ever-growing list of appalling window jobs on the north side of the city of late. These dodgy repro sash merchants are wrecking the north inner city with appallingly detailed windows, spoiling the prime opportunity we have to reinstate correct windows now that first generation replacements are ending their lifespan. In the case above, they have frilly horns and plastic grids between the panes. Goodness knows what’s happened inside… In fact, this hapless Parnell Square terrace – probably the longest mid-18th century terrace in Dublin – must surely rank as the most fecked over in the city in terms of well-intentioned but misguided alterations and interventions. Such a shame to see money so poorly spent, when a little guidance would have made all the difference.

The tripartites are completely makey-uppy, with 1970s aluminium frames here before this. Agreed on the interesting two-bay arrangement. The tiny upper floor windows are a further hangover from earlier house styles.

From today’s Irish Times:

Mountjoy’s fate central to city’s heritage
FRANK McDONALD

Can Mountjoy Square be turned into the jewel of Dublin’s inner northside that it should be?

NOWHERE IS the casual neglect of Dublin’s northside more evident than at Mountjoy Square. With its perfect proportions, it should be one of the jewels of the northside. Instead, the central space is a mess, occupied by (among other things), a parks depot from which the Liffey Boardwalk is serviced.

The depot’s walls are scarred by graffiti, the park railings haven’t been painted for decades and one side of the square is used as a coach park – with official approval. It is impossible to imagine Merrion Square or Fitzwilliam Square being treated in such cavalier fashion. It’s obvious why – they’re on the southside.

But neither of the two southside squares is much inhabited – unlike, say, the squares of Edinburgh’s Georgian New Town. Mountjoy is, however. According to lobby group the Mountjoy Square Society, there are at least 1,000 people living on the square, in original houses or purpose-built flats.

History has not been kind to Mountjoy Square. Like the rest of Dublin’s northside Georgian core, it fell into decline after the Duke of Leinster built a new townhouse in Kildare Street, with its garden front facing what would become Merrion Square. The northside eventually became a set of tenements, suitable for Seán O’Casey’s trilogy.

The Shadow of a Gunman is unsurprisingly set on the square, as O’Casey once lived there. Arthur Guinness died in a house on the square in 1803, according to the Mountjoy Square Society. “Perhaps most notably, Mountjoy Square hosted meetings of the First and Second Dáil in 1919-1921,” it notes proudly.

“Mountjoy Square has an extraordinary history and, when it was built, was considered to be one of the finest residential squares in Europe,” says its secretary, Karin O’Flanagan, a resident since 1978. Dublin City Council needs “to create a space both for visitors and the local community which will breathe new life and pride into the square”.

By the early 1980s, when I first wrote about Mountjoy Square, only 43 of 67 houses built two centuries earlier had survived, despite the valiant efforts of Mariga Guinness, Uinseann MacEoin and others. No 50, the house Mariga bought to preserve, was later pulled down.

Since then, with the aid of urban renewal tax incentives, at least a semblance of the missing houses has been recreated. However, the new Georgian facades are not very convincing, and behind them lie shoebox flats with tall rooms that are evocative of Victorian prison cells, produced by Zoe Developments.

Nonetheless, anyone passing through Mountjoy Square now would at least get the impression that it’s intact. Previously, chunks of the south and west sides lay in ruins. The late Prof FX Martin used to avoid the square when bringing visitors into the city from Dublin airport; he didn’t want them to think it had been bombed. Now, it’s up for designation as an architectural conservation area (ACA). This would be “hugely valuable ”, says Garrett Fennell, the society’s chairman. Dublin City Council, he says, are key stakeholders, “given that they own and (mis)manage the park in the centre of the square. They also control the traffic/parking regime and deal with planning, and in particular enforcement and housing standards issues.

“They are utterly frustrating our efforts to take tangible steps in other areas of improving the square. In a mixture of indifference and inertia, they tolerate the use of the square as a commuter coach park. We were told recently that they have no plans to move the coaches from the square, despite earlier indications that they would be moved.”

It was a joke to think Dublin was being considered as a World Heritage Site for its Georgian core “when the city council allows one of its premier Georgian squares – and its only real residential Georgian square – to be used as a coach park”.

Fennell, a son of late Fine Gael TD Nuala Fennell, says if the council doesn’t start taking its responsibilities for the northside Georgian core seriously, the society will call on Unesco to “disallow the bid” for World Heritage Site designation. “It is a complete joke to think that Dublin is being pushed for [this status] while the city council itself is guilty of wanton neglect of that Georgian heritage.”

The society has said that, unless the council commits itself to improvements, it should cede control of the park to the Office of Public Works, which maintains St Stephen’s Green to a very high standard.

At a meeting with society members last February with 13 council officials, chief planning officer Dick Gleeson said that, despite much investment in the inner city during the boom years, “the north Georgian core had been obdurate in its resistance to a strategic uplift”, according to the minutes.

Heritage officer Charles Duggan saw ACA designation as potentially “an important step in Georgian parts of Dublin achieving World Heritage Site status”, while Charlie Lowe of the Parks Department agreed the location of its depot in the square was “not optimal” – although it would be “difficult to relocate”.

As for removing the coach park, the society was later informed by Tim O’Sullivan, executive manager of the roads and traffic department, that this had been rejected by members of the north inner city area committee in March on the basis that there should be “an examination of options on a citywide basis” for storing private coaches.

The National Transportation Authority had “indicated a willingness to consider funding coach parking facilities”, and there would be a “policy review”. When this was done, “we will be developing specific proposals for new coach parking facilities, which should allow for the removal or reduction of coach parking in the more sensitive areas of Dublin”.

There is some hope. Under Gleeson, an inter-departmental group has been set up to tackle the challenge of “repositioning the north Georgian core . . . in the life of the inner city”. And this is to involve a “strategic top-down and an inventive bottom-up approach”, with an input from residents.

The “down-at-heel” north Georgian core, so much at odds with Dublin’s aspirations to be a “creative, smart knowledge city”, may finally be rescued. But the challenge “is so great that it will require many layers of intervention, requiring the creative collaboration of all stakeholders, city council departments and relevant city institutions”.

Dublin City Council recent made moves to designate Mountjoy Square as an ACA. The public consultation period on the Draft Plan closed on 21st March (sorry meant to flag this beforehand but the variation process slipped up on many people somewhat). You can view the Draft ACA report here http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/DublinCityDevelopmentPlan/Pages/VariationstotheDevelopmentPlan.aspx
A few issues arise in my mind (shared by the local residents group and Dublin Civic Trust). Cheif among these is the very limited boundary of the proposed ACA, which cuts through many of the important and intact surrounding streets (Upper Gardiner, Belvedere Place, Gardiner Place) depriving them of ACA protection. Further info on the ACA can be found at http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/news

Came across this report of the City Architects Blog…worth a look. Great work from two talented architecture grads working with DCC last year. http://www.dublincity.ie/Housing/CityArchitectsDivision/Documents/Mountjoy_Square_Research_Document_UCD-DCC_2010.

In fairness to the City Architects Division, they take a more upbeat view of the area’s future then their (ever cautious) colleagues in Planning.

Local Mountjoy Square Society may be of interest to those concerned at how the area develops http://mountjoysquaresociety.com/

It may have been missed, given the absence of announcement from the City Council, but Mountjoy Square and its (very immediate) environs were declared an Architectural Conservation Area by variation of the City Development Plan on 14th May 2012. The final ACA document can be read here:

http://www.dublincity.ie/Planning/DublinCityDevelopmentPlan/Documents/MountjoySquareACADocumentAdopted.pdf

Despite a number of good quality submissions (all generally ignored by the Council), and many of which raised the issue of very limited boundary area of the ACA, the all important red line was not amended and the ACA boundary incpororates only the houses onto the square and their gardens/lands to the rear, effectively sundering important and largely intact streets, such as Belevedre Place and Gardiner Place, in two.

Whether the designation means anything in our debased city is another point. Similar designations on O’Connell Street, Grafton Street, Thomas Street and Environs and Capel Street have failed miserably to effect any meaningful improvement in standards in these areas.

The recent programme for Dublin Garden Squares Day, organised by Dublin Civic Trust, afforded a wonderful opportunity to explore the many delights of the city’s north Georgian squares and their connecting streets. The phrase “hidden gems” has become rather hackneyed of late…our city seems to be full of under-discovered and under-appreciated delights, many of them falling into rack and ruin! However, on Parnell and Mountjoy Squares many of the delights of Dublin are plain for all to see; wonderful evocative Georgian streetscapes, stately public buildings and a surprising wealth of cultural attractions.

The highlights of the north city events for me were surely the stunning Rococo chapel of the Rotunda Hospital; that former epicentre of skullduggery, the chamber of the now defunct Dublin County Council at No. 11 Parnell Square; and the beautifully restored apartments of No. 46 Mountjoy Square (and I think everyone on that tour felt very privileged to see inside such beautifully restored homes).

However, anyone walking and exploring the area with the eye of a visitor on Saturday could not but despair at the poor condition of so many of the area’s historic buildings and the general lack of care and vision for the public realm. The north Georgian city needs an action plan, built around a clear vision of the area as an historic jewel in the city centre.

The palpable potential of the buildings on Palace Row to develop as Dublin’s equivalent of the V&A was alluded to by the architect James Kelly on his tour. That most of the north side of Parnell Square is in State ownership makes this vision all the more achievable.

Meanwhile, the sterling work of the Mountjoy Square Society must be commended as they seek to rejuvenate and restore what is arguably the greatest of the city’s 18th century squares. The image of “conservation pioneers”, raised in the recent BBC series ‘The Secret History of Streets’ http://www.open.edu/openlearn/whats-on/tv/ou-on-the-bbc-the-secret-history-our-streets has great resonance here in Dublin. The north Georgian city needs pioneers as much as it needs the active engagement of Dublin City Council and other agencies.

I know its been posted so many times here before, but as ever the condition of some parts of the city centre never fails to shock me. The one surprise I found from recent walkabout of the north city area was the number of tourists about. Wandering from square to square looking for something to do…

This trompe d’oeil caught my eye:

The quality of the stone is beautiful of course

The water mechanism is long gone

The famous Parnell Square Framework Plan has long since gone, and with it any chance of a co-ordinated vision for this wonderful square. The Council are currently repaving the east side from the Gate Theatre up to the entrance to the Garden of Remembrance.

Its been nicely laid, but its hardly the high quality granite envisaged under the Framework Plan. The idea then was to continue the paving materials used on O’Connell Street.

The crappy streetlighting on this side of the square could surely be replaced. Its embarrassing.

This one on the far side.

The north side opposite the Hugh Lane Gallery.

And the west side

Poor North Frederick Street. Despite its grand, and somewhat unfashionable name, the street has to be one of the most unfortunate of the great boulevards of the Gardiner estate. Yet, the street is the first impression most visitors get as they arrive in Dublin city centre.

After a journey along Dorset Street, the Aircoach/Airbus turns onto North Frederick Street and the approach to O’Connell Street.

An over-engineered entrance into the street announcing the 30km limit. The street is impressively wide and broader pavements and trees would greatly improve this approach.

Many of the original buildings have been butchered over the past. I cant imagine the last time a city planner was up here.

Posted this one before

Is there a plan for this area now that it is being developed as a cultural quarter ?

Well the plan is the cultural quarter plan, at least for Parnell Square. What will hopefully happen is that the Library investment and renewal of the public realm around the Square will stimulate new uses and building improvements at least within this defined area.

There is also a proposal being finalised to designate Parnell Square an ACA linking to the ACA aroun Mountjoy Square. There are plans to refurbish the garden at the centre of Mountjoy Square under the Public Realm Strategy.

However, bigger thinking? big scale investment? active planning controls? I think these all remain to be pushed for.

I hope they push for a bigger scale. It looks like they were just settling on doing the pavements and uninspiring paving at that.

I was reading an article in the Irish times about street clutter and the new guidelines. Hopefully they do something inspiring with it.

Its the perfect time to discuss how we revitalise and reuse our Georgian city areas.

Maximising the city’s Georgian heritage – Friday 13th September 2013

Dublin Civic Trust is delighted to announce a major one-day conference assessing the role and significance, past, present and future, of the historic squares of Dublin.
Placing a special emphasis on the north Georgian area of the city in collaboration with The Mountjoy Square Society, this major one-day symposium will be hosted in the magnificent environment of the former ballroom of the Assembly Rooms of the Rotunda Hospital on Parnell Square, once the focus of social life in eighteenth-century Dublin.”

More details: http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/events.php

Dublin Civic Trust in today’s Irish Times:

Dublin’s five Georgian squares could be rejuvenated Squares could be ‘cultural and social hubs’, says civic trust

Dublin could develop its answer to Amsterdam’s Museumplein, London’s Exhibition Road and even Paris’s Palais Royal through the rejuvenation of its Georgian squares, according to the Dublin Civic Trust.

The five Georgian squares are more than just historical set pieces and, particularly those on the city’s north side, are largely untapped social and economic resources, the trust said.

It will next week hold a conference to celebrate the heritage of the squares – Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square and St Stephen’s Green in the south city and Parnell Square and Mountjoy Square on the north side – and to ignite a new era in their development.

The conference aims to stimulate public discussion about the conservation of the squares through exploring new uses for buildings and promoting new perspectives on the role and design of their gardens and parks.

Social vitality
It also seeks to explore how the economic and social vitality of the city could be enhanced through reshaping predominantly commercial uses on the south side and widespread inadequate residential standards on the north side into world-class community and commercial centres.

“While the conference day aims to showcase the historic significance of all of the squares of central Dublin, it will place a special emphasis on the north Georgian core of the city which for too long has been overlooked as an extraordinary cultural and economic resource,” conservation research officer with the trust Graham Hickey said.

While they have been the victim of severe neglect, the buildings of the north Georgian core have more intact features than their southern counterparts because they were not “gutted” to accommodate office development to the same extent. For similar reasons, they offer greater opportunity to foster a vibrant residential community, Mr Hickey said.

“The Georgian landscape of the area north of O’Connell Street, as laid out by the Gardiner estate over a century from the early 1700s, presents a potentially outstanding host to new residential and community life in the heart of the city, and as a backdrop to major cultural institutions.”

Cultural quarter
Dublin City Council’s plans to create a cultural quarter on Parnell Square, with the city library moving to the Coláiste Mhuire building and linking up with the adjacent Hugh Lane gallery, as well as the presence of the Gate Theatre and the Writers’ Centre, give the square the potential to be a cultural hub of international standard.

“Parnell Square in particular, with its cluster of existing and future institutions, has the potential to provide a counterbalance to the museum quarter around Merrion Square – what one might term Dublin’s answer to the Palais Royal and Louvre complex in Paris, or Amsterdam’s Museumplein or London’s Exhibition Road.”

The conference takes place in the Pillar Room, the former ballroom of the Rotunda, on September 13th. Further details at dublincivictrust.ie.

Well worth the €65 if you ask me: http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/events.php

Followed by Garden Squares Day on 14th September

Well worth posting for those not on Twitter…

http://www.drb.ie/dublin-stories/dublin-stories/2013/09/22/knocking-dublin

Is there an author of that piece?

Just prior to the Civic Trust’s Georgian Squares conference and Georgian Squares day, this was done on Merrion Square South by Dublin City Council Roads Maintenance Department:

Before:

After:

From Dublin City Development Plan 2011-17:

‘Programme for Restoration’

I saw the same department in work a few weeks ago in Hatch Street.

Rather than take the time to reinstate the metal tree surround it was dumped into the back of the van and the gap simply filled with tarmac.

So I was looking at the derelicts sites register

http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/Documents/DerelictSites.pdf

Its good to see there are now so few “derelict” building in the city.

At last we’re starting to talk about reconverting pre-1915 houses in the city centre from office to residential. There’s been a real push in thinking from State initiatives such as Living City Incentives and the Built Heritage Jobs Leverage Grants to IGS own grants scheme, just announced, to Dublin City Council initiatives such as changes to development levies and the South Georgian Core report and models.

This article in the Irish Times today

http://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/returning-period-houses-to-residential-use-1.1675246

Its positive!

These are extremely worthwhile initiatives and deserving of much wider promotion.

But seriously, what a lazy, misleading article from The Irish Times.

Firstly, in a piece almost entirely about Protected Structures, the term ‘conservation architect’ wasn’t used once, the omission even extending to the Grade II services provided by the architectural practice interviewed!

Secondly, since when have Masterplan Associates been known to specialise in historic building conversions? Nabbing a ‘chocolate factory’ on Merrion Square, a handful of mews and suburban house jobs, and facilitating the likes of below hardly puts you up there as an authority on innovative solutions to Protected Structure adaptation.

A handsome set of Edwardian houses on Victoria Road in Rathgar.

And the same houses which Masterplan Associates facilitated the omission of chimneys from in a retention application.

Yah.

Granted, after they had already had a Todd Architects sledgehammer applied. And this in a Conservation Area! I don’t know who’s worse – the architects, the consultant planners, or the publicly employed planners. What a disaster.

The managing director of Masterplan goes on to state, as if he can’t believe his own luck: “We have never been refused permission and we’ve done lots of them,” says Kim.” “The more units you try and get, the more difficult,” Kim says. But we’ll try our darnedest for ya.

Kim also says: “You should be aware that if it’s protected it absolutely will cost you more to refurbish, as you have to use traditional construction methods”.

What a preposterous, sweeping and plainly inaccurate statement. Thanks Jong, Protector of The Heritage.

One also imagines the first year planning student’s favoured tool in the kit: “A planning search is recommended in the early days to see if anyone has been refused permission to convert before you go down the road of buying the property” – came from this direction.

Then the journalist herself, of the ‘paper of record’, goes on to spout cringe-inducing phrases like: “These grants can be used not just for Georgian buildings, but also protected buildings”. Imagine! There are buildings other than Geoooooorgian dolls houses that are of special interest!

She then continues: “Dublin City Council has agreed to waive development levies charges on those converting historic buildings within the South Georgian Core from commercial to residential.”

Eh, I think you’ll find that’s every Protected Structure in the entire Dublin City Council administrative area, never mind across the State. Unbelievable.

She then consolidates it with the utterly misleading case of development levies being applied to the conversion of a Victorian pile on 37 Northumberland Road from commercial to residential in 2011. If she’d even bothered to look, the grand finale of her piece would have fallen flat on its face. No.37 is a Protected Structure and therefore exempt from levies under the current regime. The current regime was introduced as part of national planning guidelines published in 2012.

The icing on the cake is asking Masterplan Associates – not the conservation architect Grade II – to notionally redesign a pair of highly significant, 1740s, former gabled-fronted Dutch Billys on St. Stephen’s Green into single family home, mixed use and multiple-unit options! They wouldn’t know a baluster from a barrister. Speaking of which, I’d better shut up.

Lord, trash like this really gets up my nose.

In fairness, the article, if nothing else, at least talks up the possibility of return to resi and introduces prospectives to concepts such as ‘the planning system’ ‘conservation architects’ ‘protected structures’ and the idea that it can be more complex than might first seem the case.

Built environment professionals can sometime labour under the impression that everyone else knows what they are talking about. That concepts of planning and heritage protection are common knowledge to other people. Its not always the case.

I fully agree that careful conservation and thoughtful adaptation will be key to the success of return to resi developments. It is of course incumbent upon professionals to advise people ethically and responsibility and imaginatively. And its essential that the local authority knows its stuff but also that it is helpful to these schemes or it will kill any nascent initiative dead.

Take your points Graham, but still think its positive that we are at least talking about this and these schemes that no one seems to know anything much about.

Yes of course it’s positive Stephen! That’s why it’s frustrating when the considerable incentives garnered in recent times, including the DOE’s guidelines for waiving development levies on a national basis, are misrepresented, while a frivolous, ‘buyer beware’ red herring upsets the entire apple cart.

Likewise, if the correct specialists were interviewed, the features of period properties – not least the pair on St. Stephen’s Green – would be highlighted as unique and distinguished selling points, rather than as yet more red tape to struggle through.

We have such an immature real estate industry in this country. They just don’t get it – the agents, the developers or the commentators. Is it any wonder the poor householder is at sea. All these guys are so behind the curve it’s embarrassing at this stage.

Some good news items here:

Parnell Square Cultural Quarter gets a design team of Grafton Architects and Shaffrey Associates. A planning application is expected for next summer…although awarding the design contract has been over a year delayed. http://dublincity.ie/design-team-selected-parnell-square-cultural-quarter-redevelopment

Mountjoy Square now has the basis of a plan to redesign its gardens and restore the perimeter of one of Dublin’s most neglected Georgian Squares. A mooted €4.6m price tag. http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/ireland/dublins-mountjoy-square-set-for-redevelopment-636712.html

There’s still nothing like dogma for leading you down an intellectual cul-de-sac.

We have conservation guidelines yes, but you’re not supposed to disengage your brain before using them.

The passage quoted in the planners report states:

”the importance of recognising the various past alterations/interventions that contribute to the cumulative historic interest of a building and the fact that these should not be erased without due consideration of all the consequences.”

What are the terrifying consequences of reinstating the original window proportions?

The building is now semi-anonymous in the streetscape and virtually un-dateable to the casual observer due in large measure to having been thoughtlessly fitted up with a set of 19th century plate glass windows. And that’s the alteration that we’re supposed to value over an above any consideration for the integrity of the original design.

The City Assembly House isn’t some vernacular building that evolved over time, each new generation contributing wonderfully to its layers of patination. It is a dignified minor set-piece building that was consciously designed in the mid 1760s by an individual [apparently Oliver Grace] and that was faithfully executed according to that design.

Were the original window proportions integral to the architectural design? Of course they were.

The City Assembly House doesn’t have . . . various cumulative alterations and interventions that contribute to its historic interest . . . it has the wrong windows!

My thoughts on the IGS application – if the 2 over 2 windows had been replaced by aluminium frames or pvc frames in the 1990s, would the application to restore authentic windows be refused for the same reasoning “recognising the various past alterations/interventions that contribute to the cumulative historic interest of a building” or would it have been rubber stamped.