Pastiche – The Final Solution?
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@ctesiphon wrote:
On a related point earlier in this thread, someone (phil? Graham?) asked about modern buildings being replicated- the only case I can think of is the cheap knock off of the Lisney building on SSGreen. I wouldn’t be a huge fan of the STW original, but the derivative sister is a sham.
ctesiphon, do you by any chance know who designed the copy? I assume that the STW one was more Tallon than Scott or Walker.
Sorry phil, I’ve no idea. I know Frank McDonald has written about it before (Destruction of Dublin, maybe?)– though I’d like to point out that my opinion is entirely my own! 😀
Attn. pastiche fans!
This picture appeared in the paper a while ago, when Tralee councillors wanted to delist the rear annex of a Georgian house on Denny Street in the town (above), so as it could be redeveloped. The annex is a bit unusual, with large Wyatt windows. Its smaller scale is appropriate to the side street off the main Georgian street.
Denny Street is Tralee’s most architecturally important street, a formal mall terminated at one end by a fine 1920s sandstone town hall-type building and opening at the other end into Tralee town park. See circa 1940s picture of the street here:
http://www.askaboutireland.ie/show_asset.do?asset_id=3751
Anyway the annex was delisted and here’s the resulting planning application (Ref. 05/6992):
That is a dreadful proposal that would make the Zoe facades on Bachelors Walk Dublin 1 look good. The roof elevation and complete failure to replicate the existing building lines are particularly crude. The use of a white finish at ground floor level will attract unsightly graffiti at an early stage and is poorly considered. But above all else this proposal failed to respect architectural diversity through eliminating what is an unusual and very interesting annex that should have been preserved.
Speaking of pastiche, does anyone know what the infill building on Parnell Square is to look like? The back parts of the building are almost complete and the foundations have been fully prepared for the main part of the building.
Regency London comes to Tralee :rolleyes:
They’re just like that ghastly addition made to Fairview Crescent in the 80s.Is the Parnell Square site being filled in at last?!
@Thomond Park wrote:
The complete failure to replicate the existing building lines…
What?! Any new building here would have to be lower than the Georgian.
Well starting at the begining the annex should not have had its preservation removed in this manner, as such this is a hypothetical discussion. If you look at the image for this proposal it is blatently clear that the tallest storey has not been set back as one would have expected if this were an application on a cleared site. The point I was making was about overall height which is actually higher than the front buildings and completely destroys the effect of the very fine chimney stack.
The second area where the building lines have been breached is in relation to the alignment of the windows, which are completely at odds with the existing buildings. Perhaps if one was talking about a cleared site one may condider that an additional floor lower should be sought, for certain this application shouldn’t be in the position it is in due to political influence being used.
Why is it that modern-day Georgianistas must build to intimidate original Georgian development?!
It’s as if they’re saying ‘this is how it’s done’ – ‘you could learn a thing or two from us’ :rolleyes:Yes – aside from the fact that the unusual annex should not have been delisted in the first instance, aside from pastiche not being needed here, and aside from the scale of the proposed development – the design is utterly woeful!
Look at the ground floor there, it’s like an 1800 row of tiny fishermen’s cottages on a dirty little lane that have had pediments tacked on, and oh, four storeys piled up on top.The proportions, both in themselves and in relation to the area are so way off the scale it looks like a joke.
And why do developers always insist on using British Georgian over here too?! Mansard roofs indeed…
(though yes you see the odd one down south)@Graham Hickey wrote:
Is the Parnell Square site being filled in at last?!
Yeah, as I say, it looks like it. I would love to see the design proposal for it.
This is an example of bad pastiche: wrong period, poor execution, clearly mismatched windows and floor levels. this is hardly an argument against pastiche, just an argument against doing things badly. In our brains the concepts of ‘copy’ and ‘imitation’ are closely linked with ‘cheap’ and ‘pale’. Other words like ‘forgery’, ‘ripoff’ and ‘counterfeit’ inhabit the same neural nieghbourhood.
What if the developer had specified a very good continuation of the original buildings, the diference only discernible to the expert eye, or easily discernible but pleasing nonetheless? What if there were no deceit in this extension, if the year of construction, 2005, were clearly engraved on a keystone?
In this case, it looks like the commercial imperative to squeeze in two extra floors was stronger than the local planning guidelines.
@Frank Taylor wrote:
this is hardly an argument against pastiche, just an argument against doing things badly.
Yes. I deliberately left out the adjectives in the first post, but it is one of the most shockingly bad proposals in every way that I’ve ever seen.
Were there any architects involved in its ‘design’?
@phil wrote:
Were there any architects involved in its ‘design’?
Firm: Brendan Williams & Associates Architects [no professional qualifications shown], Market Place, Maine Street, Tralee
Client: Ned & James O’Shea, Business Centre, Rock Street, Tralee
@Devin wrote:
Firm: Brendan Williams & Associates Architects [no professional qualifications shown], Market Place, Maine Street, Tralee
Client: Ned & James O’Shea, Business Centre, Rock Street, Tralee
Thanks for that Devin.
It may sound bad of me to say, but I hope that the architect is not actually qualified. It would be very upsetting to finish 5 years of study and end up producing things like that.@phil wrote:
It would be very upsetting to finish 5 years of study and end up producing things like that.
lol – funny use of words.
Visions of young architects with heads in hands crying at their desks with reams of drawings of mini-pediments and underscaled porticos spread out in front – mourning the dashed hopes of bright and successful futures outside the world of the pastiche brigade 😀
I have just read through the entire thread and found it very interesting.
I think that common sense will often dictate where facade retention (or pastiche) is appropriate. I do not see either term as pejorative.
The issue of ‘experts’ designing for experts interests me i.e. the idea that the preference of the general public is not important (except as something which should be changed – presumably by (re)education?).
Do I perceive a ‘collegiality’ in the forum – a (cosy?) consensus? An assumed superiority even? (or is it just that I’m from the northside) 😀
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