O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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Great pics Graham. I’m down that part of the city the odd time but its so hard to see the changes as its so conjested at the moment. Great detail. Roll on the completion day when ever that is!
I really like that new shop front on the Dublin Bus building. It looks really well. I think the street overall is starting to shape up very nicely indeed. I just walked down it and admired the change in the footpath width makes to the perception of the GPO and buildings nearby.
Phil
I was in Clearys recently for the first time since I was a kid and the place has got a real vibe to it, much more so than any chic Grafton street estabishment. From the upstairs full length windows you can stand and look down at the Spike and the crowds milling by. I go shopping in Antwerp or Brussels city centers and never you will never see the kind of rushing, busy crowds that make their way through Dublin. In fact, shopping on the Northside of town is so much more exiting than Grafton street etc., the people, the decadence of O’Connell street, the seediness of the streets down to Connelly station, the shabby but teeming Ilac center, amazing places, once glorious Parnell square, these are the places that form the character of town, they’re unique, hope they don’t change too much and become all nice.
If you were to look for a European equivalent of O’Connell street it would have to be the main raiway station quarter, the place where the thugs, hookers and junkies hang out, will they just move further north up the street now.With the CC acting as the Pied Piper of Hamelin 🙂
Praising the seediness of Talbot St, now there’s a first!
But I agree about the place becoming ‘too nice’; the idea of O’ Cll St as Oxford Street’s offspring is less than pleasant.
I don’t think it will ever be though, even if the CC put every resource they have into trying to make it so, the place wouldn’t change to that extent.There’s always going to be a certain shabbiness to the place, and indeed the city centre in general.
I was on Lower Baggot St, Ranelagh and around that general Victorian township/suburbia the other day, and the contrast with the condition of the bustling areas here and that of those directly across the canal was so marked, from the condition of buildings above ground level, to paving to the cleaniness of the streets – so different.On another matter, does anyone know what’s going onto that huge site opposite Jurys on Parnell St? It’s a massive space.
There’s a fantastic view of the grimey rears to all the Georgians on Parnell Square from here, with their vast chimney stacks straddling across the roofs. Remind you of photos of the tenements, and rare aul times…The Walden garage site is being converted into 6 apartment blocks. There are also plans to restore a vacant lot on Parnell Sq with a replica Georgian facade. I know waht is said about pastiche but in this case a Georgian facade is called for to restore the original terrace. A bit of a clean up of the buildings along this side if the square would be most welcome
Number 4(?) Kildare Street (the stone building which forms part of the national library beside the old Kildare Street Club that) is an interesting building in that its shape is very similar to normal brick georgian buildings and its proportions seem to be similar as well. I know it is a little away from the area being discussed, but for me it proves that pastiche is simply not the answer. I have no idea about when this building was built or if the stone work is just a facade (which would be interesting in itself because it would represent a completely different example of facadism to the type we now have). I suspect that it dates from the 1920s or 1930s but I don’t really know. Anyway the point is that it is possible to fit buildings into an existing streetscape without resorting to full blown pastiche.
Phil,
I know the building you are refering to, it’s a humdinger isn’t it. It’s a stripped classical front applied to a Georgian facade and the architect was Frederick Hayes, date 1935. It reminds me of London art-deco.
Shaun, thanks for that information (and so quick too). Do you know of any sources of information about it? It is an absolute gem. Definitely in my top 10 in Dublin.
Thanks again
Phil
It’s a pleasure….I gleaned this information from S.Rothery’s “Ireland and the new architecture”, great book. He also adds about this building that “this was the Refuge Assurance building. Polished grey Ballinasloe limestone slabs were used up to the first-floor window-cill level, and grey fossil limestone slabs, attached with copper dowels, were fixed to the rest of the front. The result was a flat shiny elevation with the desired fashionable look.” He calls it somewhat outrageous. Is there anything else like it in Dublin that you know of ? Oh, and yes, it would make my Dublin top 10 easily.
That building is interesting, but the stock of Kildare St is so jumbled that the limestone cladding desn’t stand out or its lovely windows.
Parnell Square is entirely red bricked, and entirely in the same style. This should be reinforced here with an appropriate replica (some of the original doorway remains as a guide at least)
I think it’s claimed as being the longest mid-eighteenth century terrace in the city – scraping the barrel there a bit perhaps – but whatever about facts, it’s the appearance that matters. Anything other than Georgian would look ludicrous here, especially considering the rythmical stepping up of the area.Indeed what’s annoying on Kildare St at the moment is the replacement of all the windows in the Setanta centre with cluttered cumbersome grey PVC. The streamlined nature of the original 80s windows of sheer expanses of glass is gone now, and the way they used to act as a modern interpretation of the surrounding sashes, mirroring their proportions.
I agree, a faithful Georgian copy using good materials would be best up on Parnell sqare. Something akin to Mountjoy square, although I have only been up there once since it was saved from complete destruction, and it still comes in for a lot of criticism for being pastiche, or fake.
Lads, the building on the corner of Parnell Sq. East and Denmark Street is pastiche and looks quite obviously so. I really think that something with similar proportions, similar brick colour etc but bearing a contemporary stamp aswell would be much more appealing.
I agree that there is nothing worse than bad pastiche, and that yoke on the corner you speak of Phil is such an example, as are some the Zoe Dev ones on Mountjoy Square, complete with ground-to-attic exposed chimney stacks tacked on the side.
‘Replica’ I think is a better word to describe an accurate, faithful reproduction of the original, down to the bootscraper; such building in strictly limited circumstances such as this can work better than modern interpretations if they unify an area, which I think will happen on Parnell Square.
Just on the subject of Georgians, I was looking (again) at the corner buildings of O’ Connell & Henry St.
It appears, even from the engraving of Gardiner’s Mall from 1750, that Joe Walsh Travel and the one beside it were always retailers, from the moment they were built, even though they existed on an otherwise exclusively residential street.They never had the long plots of garden all the other houses had, just narrow back yards. They also have very crude squared-off backs to them.
In the engraving from 1750 as pictured below, they’re the only buildings without proper doorcases, and Joe Walsh even has a big display window – and in the picture from 1818 it even has a flat roofed porch over the entrance!
These buildings also appear to have been carved up a few times into different properties over the centuries.I’m really only raising this again because I took a picture of the side of the building the other day with what may be the original windows (below) – and that it’s facinating that such an old building, not only for the street but for Dublin in general, lies right in the midde of what is percieved a completely redeveloped street.
(sorry the pic’s a bit big)
Originally posted by Graham Hickey
‘Replica’ I think is a better word to describe an accurate, faithful reproduction of the original, down to the bootscraper; such building in strictly limited circumstances such as this can work better than modern interpretations if they unify an area, which I think will happen on Parnell Square.
Graham, I think you and I will just have to agree to disagree on this one. The word ‘pastiche’ still refers to something being replicated. I know we now associate it with some of the worst attempts at historic street rejuventation in the country, but on a fundamental basis a replication is a replication. This is as much the case for ‘good’ replications as it is for bad ones. Infact, a good fake is probably worse than a bad one in the long run as it fools the observer into thinking that it is somhow from the same time period as it surroundings. I think that there is a enough subtle differences between Georgian Buildings, which we now probably don’t really notice, to allow a well designed building with similar materials and proportions to fit in well. I love historic landscapes, but when I start to feel that they are in somehow inauthentic, I loose some of my admiration for them.
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