O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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According to the Times the Carlton plan has been changed, it seems for the better, some of the scale on the edge of the site reduced, the sky slope reoriented and the shape of the square on OCS changed to reduce the opening on to the street.
PLANS TO redevelop the Carlton cinema site on Dublin’s O’Connell Street have been substantially revised by Chartered Land to meet concerns expressed by city council planners – particularly about a “park in the sky”.
Responding to a request last June for further information on the €1.25 billion scheme, which would cover an area of more than five acres, the development company has reduced the overall height of several buildings and reorientated the proposed park.
As originally envisaged, this sloping park would have faced northeast on top of a building with a height of 50m. But under the revised plan, the building’s height has been reduced to 35m and the park reorientated to face south.
There has been a corresponding reduction in the height at the corner of Henry and Moore streets, from an 11-storey tower to a four-storey building comparable in scale with Debenham’s, although it would project outwards. In addition, a residential block on Parnell Street has been reduced in height from nine storeys to seven to address concerns raised by the planners and others about its potentially obtrusive impact on views from the Rotunda Hospital and Parnell Square.
High-level restaurants are to be relocated to ground level on the O’Connell Street and Moore Street frontages of the site. The number of restaurants proposed for Moore Street has been doubled with the aim of turning it into a “food destination” area.
But the principal revision by Dublin Central Architects – a partnership formed by BKD, Donnelly Turpin and McGarry NÃ Eanaigh – involves turning around the rooftop park and providing a “grand civic staircase” (supplemented by lifts) leading up to it from Moore Street.
The apartment building on which it would be laid out has been reduced to a maximum height of eight storeys, so as to protect sightlines from O’Connell Street and preserve the existing parapet lines of buildings along the west side of the street. The proposed staircase would rise from a new public space at the rear of four buildings on Moore Street, which were designated as a national monument because of their link with the 1916 Rising. The character of this street would also be “reinforced”.
Another significant change involves the splayed opening on to O’Connell Street which, at 35m, was regarded by the planners as too wide. Under the revised plan, it would be fronted by a “screen” of thin, paired columns topped by a flat canopy.
Michael McGarry of Dublin Central Architects said this contemporary portico was designed to maintain the continuity of the “wall” and was on a scale “echoing the great civic gestures, such as the GPO, that are part of the unique character of O’Connell Street”. Dominic Deeny, chief executive of Chartered Land, said the latest plans “take full cognisance” of Dublin City Council’s request for additional information and respect the council’s development plan and its future intentions on density and height.
“We have also taken the opportunity to address many of the observations made by third parties. I believe we have been able to preserve the integrity of our overall plan, while looking at how we are treating the historic nature of the overall site.”
It includes a total of 12 protected structures, including the art deco facade of the former Carlton cinema, which would be relocated 40m north of its current position to create a new public space off O’Connell Street that would be open day and night. The revised plans also see the preservation and restoration of the facades of numbers 43-45 O’Connell Street as well as the full conservation and restoration of number 42, which is the only original Georgian house on the street to survive intact.
Although parts of the site have been derelict for nearly 30 years, Mr Deeny said Chartered Land was “committed to delivering this scheme which will create a vibrant new urban quarter on O’Connell Street and reinstate it as the city’s premier thoroughfare”.
Subject to planning permission being granted, the scheme – called “Dublin Central” – would incorporate two new streets and three new squares under a “rainscreen” canopy as well as 69 apartments, 17 restaurants and more than 100 new retail outlets.
Chartered Land, controlled by low-profile developer Joe O’Reilly, is one of Ireland’s leading commercial property firms. Its portfolio includes shopping centres in Dundrum and Swords and a half-share in the Ilac Centre on Moore Street.
It also developed the new five-storey block of offices and shops beside the Gaiety Theatre on South King Street and is building the 2,000-seat Grand Canal Theatre in Docklands and two adjoining office blocks, all designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1105/1225523373699.html
@Irish Times wrote:
It includes a total of 12 protected structures, including the art deco facade of the former Carlton cinema, which would be relocated 40m north of its current position to create a new public space off O’Connell Street that would be open day and night.
Thanks for posting that article Notjim.
Does anyone else think this is simply taking the whole facadism thing a little far? Heritage in Dublin seems to be coming more and more like a game of musical chairs these days
I think we already knew this but further confirmation –
John Lewis Partnership Plc, owner of the largest U.K. department-store chain, will spend €50 million to open its first foreign outlet in the Irish Republic.
The five-floor store will be located in Dublin on O’Connell Street, the city’s main avenue, London-based John Lewis said today in an e-mailed statement. It expects to open the outlet in 2013.
John Lewis, which runs 27 U.K. department stores, already has plans to open an outlet near Lisburn in Northern Ireland. The retailer aims to double in size in the next decade.
From the Independent.
I see from http://www.dublincentral.ie/ that the unlisted granite building on O’Connell street has been given a reprieve. So thumbs up to these changes.
What’s happening on Henry street I wonder.
three new squares under a “rainscreen” canopy??
oh i see it on the dublin central site, see how the put the structure across the front of the square along the line of the buildings.
I was agnostic about this proposal when it was first mooted; I was mostly curious about the Gallery reuse of the Georgian on OCS. However, at the end of the summer I was in Stockholm and that made my mind up against it. In the middle of Stockholm they have a set of five very fine modernist towers, just the sort of buildings I like and probably the nicest buildings I saw in Stockholm.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/H%C3%B6torgsskraporna_stockholm.png
The problem is that they are built over a mall, a mall with open streets, but streets that are very enclosed and with overpasses, much as is proposed here, with high end shops and the like and it was the most deadening depressing un-urban space, the worst part of central Stockholm. The point is, the architecture isn’t enough, your experience of it from street level is not enough to compensate for a lifeless, contrived, streetscape, Not that the upper OCS proposal is anything necessarily anything special in that regard, but even it if was, mall-like streets are terrible and sad in a city context. The bumph about NY style shopping is so annoying in this regard, nowhere in NY is like this, though, oddly enough, a lot of NY, off the big avenues with numbers and names, is a tiny bit like what is already there, a lively mess.
@notjim wrote:
In the middle of Stockholm they have a set of five very fine modernist towers, just the sort of buildings I like and probably the nicest buildings I saw in Stockholm.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/H%C3%B6torgsskraporna_stockholm.png
😮
There’s no accounting for taste.
@notjim wrote:
The point is, the architecture isn’t enough, your experience of it from street level is not enough to compensate for a lifeless, contrived, streetscape, Not that the upper OCS proposal is necessarily anything special in that regard, but even it if was, mall-like streets are terrible and sad in a city context.
I’m not sure I follow your Stockholm reference, but I certainly share your misgivings about ‘mall-like streets’.
From the posted images, if anything, the ‘streets’ look more ‘mall-like’ than they did in the original version! The canopy looks lower, heavier and more fully enclosing than I was conscious of it in the earlier images.
I also think the O’Connell Street elevation looks more facade-istic now than it did before.
Original version
New versionFor some reason, they’ve changed the proposed new additional storey (on top of the retained red brick, and new red in-fill, elevations) to a uniform glazed band across six or seven individual properties, which only goes to emphasise that the architectural treatment is ‘facade only’, perhaps a lesson learned from the success of the ‘Clarence’
They were asked to tighten up the opening, or ‘new square’, off O’Connell Street and to look at making it more ‘formal’, but instead, they’ve thrown a canopy strip across the entrance, held up by a forest of spindly legs. IMO, this is a weak compromise that, in no way, addresses the issue.
On the positive side, the retention of the granite ‘Garda’ building, is to be welcomed, and I also think that the contextual treatment of the re-located Carlton facade is slightly more successful this time.
The re-orientated ‘ski slope’ has probably gained some measure of practicality as an amenity feature, but it has lost whatever dramatic appeal it had.
The revisions leave me with the feeling that the promoters and designers of the scheme must have had very little actual belief in their original vision, if they were prepared to water it down and compromise it so easily, especially when the final decision was going to be made by the Bord anyway.
If they had so little faith in the original scheme, then it’s a pity they didn’t go back to square one and develop a strong alternative concept based on a little more faith in the tried and trusted ‘real streets and squares’ model that differenciates the authentic urban shopping experience, that city centre Dublin offers, from the imitation ‘shopping mall’ experience available in places like Dundrum and elsewhere.
I have got to say that delay has made this project appear :eek:increasingly unreal to me.
The bus is gone, boys, not just moved 40m up the street.
From the New York Times today, a quote from a much longer story.…..Aldis Nordfjord, a 53-year-old architect, also lost her job last month. So did all 44 of her co-workers — everyone in the company except its owners. As many as 75 percent of Iceland’s private-sector architects have probably been fired in the past few weeks, she said……………………
Great analysis gunter, I agree, dump the stupid attempt at a canopy at the entrance, raise the glass roof a little, and fix that nasty square bit tacked onto the carlton.
Seconded. This requires no ‘innovation’ in respect of the entrance. Ditch the gimmickery of the ‘reinterpreted portico’ (which’ll be gone in 20 years anyway) and focus on a well crafted contemporary street corner. That block bookending the Carlton also looks completely incontextual and has no justification in height terms either. Saying that, the overall design of the scheme has at least become less chaotic, but as I’m yet to familiarise myself with the other changes, cannot really comment beyond that.
Without meaning to hijack, the restoration of the Ulster Bank building at No. 3-4 Lower O’Connell Street and the adjacent ground floor of No. 2 is complete.
First and foremost, what strikes one about this project is the extent to which architectural thinking can change within the space of thirty years – reverting from a ‘modernising’ approach in the 1970s, to the more considerate philosophy of today which (increasingly) respects the design integrity of historic structures. This restoration also demonstrates just how pointless so many ‘progressive’ butchering jobs were in the mid to late 20th century – in this case the architectural profession literally crawling back on its hands and knees to meekly reinstate what was removed only within recent memory. Street furniture around the corner on Eden Quay has lasted longer than the replacement shopfront.
Going by their record to date, it is clear that Ulster Bank are not exactly the most liberal minded of financial institutions when it comes to architecture. Alternately however, one may view their conservative approach as a considerate and constructive one in the face of the often sensitive sites their branches inhabit in traditional streetscapes.
This is their Dorset Street branch in Dublin, so convincing a reproduction of the neighbouring Victorian gabled pair that it has fooled at least one inventory recorder of the street that I’ve encountered.
Whether this was a lazy solution is a matter of taste; what all could agree on is that the site could have accepted a number of options.
Similarly, their previously mentioned Dundalk branch was also extended in a mirror-image fashion, with the central part and the entire left-hand side dating to the late 1990s. This is probably one of the most accomplished reproduction buildings anywhere in the State in terms of quality of execution. Arguably the omission of chimneys to lend animation to the hefty roof massing was unfortunate.
And then we come to Ulster Bank O’Connell Street. Unlike the above examples, this project has precedent on its side to somewhat ease the concerns of the honesty-first camp. As charted earlier, this handsome neoclassical building of 1919-1923 was designed by Belfast architect James A. Hanna in the wake of the destruction of 1916, and was the last building to be completed in the reconstructions. This was his original design, which was largely executed.
In the 1970s, its original cut stone shopfront and that of No. 2 to the right were almost entirely removed and replaced with a curious historicist-cum-brutalist whatever-you’re-having-yourself number, with channelled granite cladding, twee broad infilled archways and thoroughly bizarre cast concrete inserts below first floor level.
The reinstatement of the original shopfront design commenced over the summer in what must be noted as a remarkable turnaround from planning stage to completion. Clearly there’s still ample liquidity in Ulster Bank’s coffers…
The transformation has been remarkable.
Alas Ulster Bank to not appear to own/occupy the upper floors of No. 2, so only its ground floor has been given improving treatment.
It’s a shame I cannot host a dissolving sequence here, as it works to dramatic effect in Picture Viewer and Powerpoint. Still you get the idea from above.
The original shopfront of the main building has been beautifully reinstated, with expertly selected materials and construction techniques. Portland stone was acquired for dressing as was originally the case, while an excellent coarsely grained granite was sourced for the principal facing material.
Thin stone tile joints are thankfully a think of the past in reproduction, as the corner pieces of granite cladding have been cleverly hewn to imitate full blocks, as this example of sandstone below demonstrates.
The Ulster Bank in Dundalk was afflicted with this tile-effect problem.
To indulge in some comparison, overall the reproduction has been very accurate.
The proportions of the central window are a little off, but relying purely on the distorting characteristics of photographs is never advisable. What matters is that the window created works in its own right, and it does.
Alas, the surrounding channelling is too shallow, picked up especially in the splayed and stepped detailing around the arch which has a watery, cladding-like appearance.
Sadly what do not work on any level are the doorcases. While beautifully executed in buttery Portland stone, the lintels sitting atop are laughably weak and positively cartoon-like in contrast to the vigorous heavy statement of the originals.
As Stephen mentioned earlier, the frieze carving is similarly half-hearted and appliqué in appearance, with none of the enthusiasm of the previous models.
An acceptable attempt.
The masonry of the upper window insert is more confident.
Alas the columns and friezes again fall foul of the absence of an innate understanding of architectural masonry carving – the weak capitals, banding and dentil courses more typical of headstone and monument carving than an ebullient 1920s bank. Clumsy joints with the granite to the sides also.
Even more frustratingly, for what was a brand new, purpose-designed architectural insert, LED strip lighting was tacked on as an afterthought, completely compromising the carved masonry. It is this sort of skewed logic that so frustrates me with architects and lighting engineers. Why in the name of all that is sane were four single flush downlighters and uplighters not installed in the masonry at construction stage? This sort of thinking just baffles me, and planners most certainly should not have allowed this.
Likewise, the reinstated shopfront of No. 2 is scarred with the most ridiculous day-glo white plastic cameras, attached with even greater pride and prominence than the carved capitals above them.
@dc3 wrote:
I have got to say that delay has made this project appear :eek:increasingly unreal to me.
The bus is gone, boys, not just moved 40m up the street.
From the New York Times today, a quote from a much longer story.…..Aldis Nordfjord, a 53-year-old architect, also lost her job last month. So did all 44 of her co-workers — everyone in the company except its owners. As many as 75 percent of Iceland’s private-sector architects have probably been fired in the past few weeks, she said……………………
I’m not surprised the entire Icelandic economy was built on banks that were either lending for spec dev or to 2 individuals building a very strong retail empire in the UK the main problem being that some of their holdings were in share stakes and not direct ownership meaning that when they were marked to market daily foreign observers put 2 & 2 together and the FSA in the UK pulled the rug to protect depositors.
I have little clue as to what the macro picture is on architects / planners in Dublin but annecdotally the three planners I know well who work in private practice have all held on. If you had a scheme half built and funded on short term debt maturing next year with less than 50% let you would worry.
If you had a scheme due for completion in 2012/2013 with 250,000 pre let to an anchor with 38 other stores in a mature market and a chain of supermarkets into the hundreds I think once the majority of your funding structure matures 2012/13 you wouldn’t really need to worry too much.
@GrahamH wrote:
Likewise, the reinstated shopfront of No. 2 is scarred with the most ridiculous day-glo white plastic cameras, attached with even greater pride and prominence than the carved capitals above them.
Thats what a 65p share price does to your shopfit 🙁
This aside, the new shopfront is a welcome insertion, with the original polished granite pilasters as found still lurking beneath the 70s cladding carefully retained and repaired. New limestone capitals were also commissioned.
Again weak relief, and indeed a bizarre concoction generally. These seemingly makey-uppy Corinthian wannabes accord with no precedent I’ve ever encountered, and do not sit well in the wider composition of the shopfront. This is primarily because the granite fascia is equally poorly detailed, failing to even fall in line with the height of capitals, and features crude exposed profiles at either end. The art of the skilled master mason is very clearly lacking in this mechanised age. And above all, the fascia should very clearly not be of granite at all. It’s far too top heavy, and gives the same status to the fascia as it does the more important supporting pilasters. Poorly thought out.
And for what it’s worth, the shopfront glazing should also be of carved timber, not grubby early 1990s-style brown aluminium.
Oh dear, this has turned into something of a rant. It’s unintended, as generally this restoration has been extremely accomplished – just in some places more in aspiration that actual execution.
The windows counter this trend. Beautifully restored. Slender glazing bars, smooth lines of putty, single glazed, horn details retained. Perfection.
Some windows such as this one below had their glazing bars chopped out, probably in the 1950s or so. Their reinstatement restores uniformity and classical form to the facade.
Just a shame they’re not a sultry black. Lovely carved detail below.
All of the stonework has been beautifully cleaned. The building now makes for a suitably grandiose foil to O’Connell Monument.
Before
After
Rather than damaging the stone, some heavy soiling has been correctly left.
The portico is sparkling.
Column capitals.
What a transformation.
The underside of the balcony.
Before
After
The ground floor basement steel windows and railings following a spruce up.
Before
After
Before
After
This basement wall was the only granite to have survived the 1970s.
The glazing of the central window is surprisingly of single-glazed timber when a double glazed steel frame would be more appropriate. I had a disagreement about this with a friend outside it late one night – albeit faintly under the influence – personally I don’t think planners should have let this one go either, both from architectural and energy rating perspectives.
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