O’ Connell Street, Dublin

Right.

Firstly to deal with the humour.

From Irish Times:

@Mark Turpin of Dublin Central Architects wrote:

&#8220], he believes, is that the unbroken frontage between Henry Street and Parnell Street is too long at 400m”

The reason that Upper O’Connell Street west is as dead as a dodo is because his clients and previous owners have been sitting on their hands for the past 4, c. 7, 14 and 29 years in respect of the swath of properties that lie vacant along here – albeit largely out of their control of late – comprising no less than one third of Upper O’Connell Street west. Have a stroll along here any day and observe the enormous expanses of the derelict Carlton, the vacant site, the empty Fingal offices and the shuttered up Aer Lingus office to gain an appreciation for the real reason why Upper O’Connell Street is now nothing short of a twilight zone. The unbroken length of the street being cited as a main cause of a lack of pedestrian footfall is misguided – one need only look over to Upper O’Connell Street east to observe that the punctuations of Cathal Brugha Street and Cathedral Street have little impact on pedestrian levels. Puncturing a hole into a terrace does not necessarily a busy street make. It is clear that there are wider issues determining activity on Upper O’Connell Street, which are, as we already know, that there is nothing to draw people to the end of O’Connell Street and beyond, nor is there anything to inject vitality en route.

That is not to say that the length of the street is not a contributory factor, nor that it would be undesirable to have a break along its rather stern march northwards – but the extent of this intervention is without question the single most important factor in its consideration. How it is articulated comes second.

As such, the best way to appreciate any possible impact of a new street is simply to stand on O’Connell Street with the proposal in hand and observe. Any notional desktop theory takes the back seat when on location, as naturally ought to be the cause. You realise very quickly that an intervention along the lines of the width of what is proposed (it’s hard to tell exactly at present) would have little impact – even surprisingly – on the form of the O’Connell Street when approaching from the south. However once you pass the Spire and enter into the Upper street it can be truly appreciated the devastating impact that an overly wide, essentially exploded streetscape, could have on the character of the street, and must be avoided. Nonetheless a break of up to the width of the Carlton can be comfortably accommodated, and hopefully that is what is proposed. Anything more is simply overbearing.

On the matter of moving the Carlton itself, it’s undesirable, and without knowing the details of the site could be construed as a lazy way out of avoiding having to deal with the challenge of coming up with a turn-corner solution, integrating the existing facade. We shall await…

With regard to the delightful 1920s neo-Georgian granite faced Garda Station being ‘taken out’, there is little question that this ought and will be thrown out, inevitably on appeal. There is absolutely no reason other than trying an arm for the sake of a few extra metres of modern floorplate that this needs to be removed. It makes a pleasant and perfectly valid contribution to the streetscape, and compromises nothing architecturally of the rest of the scheme. Shunt everything back south by a plot. Such cheek!

On the new builds, the southern corner of the new street is absolute rubbish – incoherent, gimmicky, cumbersome and thoroughly ugly. And why is what will be a single structure being expressed as two different buildings? – this is the Dr. Quirkey’s site. The replacement for Dublin Bus is even worse in its laziness and failing to acknowledge the history its context. Buildings of this scale and width on the street ever since its commercialisation have always made an architectural statement: contextual, but individual. For all its faults, Dublin Bus at least continued this tradition. The proposed structure turns this on its head: reticent, anodyne and ridiculously dull for a building of its scale and status, purely for the sake of appeasing planning. This is Dunnes all over again in red sandstone.

The northern corner is welcomingly ambitious, but makes the opposite mistake of going overboard with its oversailing ‘veil’, as per its (emphatically) rejected Penneys further south – thought at least this site is more accepting of an independent approach. Such projections however do not have a localised impact, and must be considered in the wider context of the street. Indeed for some bizarre reason every single element of the proposed frontage to O’Connell Street features projecting canopies above ground floor level: do they expect global warming to take a new twist?

No point on commenting on the ski slope as it’s stating the obvious: remarkably ugly, ridiculous concept, laughably close to the GPO, and will be rejected outright on appeal. It is a shame that a more elegant expression of height to the centre of the scheme was not considered. 108 apartments is surprisingly low too.

There may be considerable merit in the new streets and squares, but as we haven’t seen them there’s no point on commenting on that front. It appears to be more ambitious that Arnotts.

Generally the scheme is to be welcomed. It will inject vitality, buzzword 1, buzzword 2 etc etc. Upper O’Connell Street on balance could do with a break along its length. The jumbled nature of stock of this stretch (the oldest on the thoroughfare) can absorb a number of contemporary interventions with ease. However the standards of architecture from what (admittedly distant) elements we can see are simply not good enough. Usually criticisms are made of ‘the heritage line’ being too conservative and limiting: in this instance O’Connell Street is deserving of only the very best in contemporary architecture, as was consistently argued ought to be the fundamental tenet of a certain other ‘live’ application on the street. What average building stock survives on the thoroughfare has generally come about through conversion from townhouse to commercial function, and often has historical value. By contrast the finest stock, particularly along this very stretch (and much of which has sadly since vanished) came about through proud rebuilding of premises, from the National Irish Bank, to Gilbeys, to the former Pillar Picture Theatre (McDonalds) to the Carlton. This tradition ought to be continued through high quality, confident contextual interventions – not meek UK high street wallpaper that can be stripped off in 20 years time. This must be central to the planning consideration of this scheme. I look forward to seeing the meat of it to the rear as images emerge!